Powers of Persuasion

A/N: Greetings all and a Happy Boxing Day (to everyone past PST—Merry Christmas before that) and Hanukkah to those who celebrate them! Like all of my other stories, I have no idea where this came from. I'm reading a book about a serial killer (that's the holiday spirit for you) so I decided to put a Potter spin on it. This story centers primarily around Hermione and seems a little slow to develop, but as I'm sure you know, post-Hogwarts fics generally require a lot of background covering the years during the war which we know nothing about (yet!!) So, read on and kindly leave a review! Thanks!

Chapter 1---Hermione's Action-packed Friday

Friday morning saw Hermione Granger walking briskly down one of the many halls at St. Mungo's toward her office, her echoing footsteps doing little to calm her nerves. She was always a little anxious on the first session with a client, but just as she had in school, she felt that she never performed as well if she wasn't a little nervous. Still a few doors away from her office, she pulled the client's history from within the stack of parchment in her arms and perused it carefully.

At the end of Voldemort and the war, though only nineteen years old, she was a key member in the campaign for the creation of a department within St. Mungo's to counsel wizards through trauma stemming from both the war as well as medical procedures. And now three years later, she was on her way to the top of her field, boasting not only her own office and receptionist, but impressive credentials and an exhaustively long list of clientele.

But glitzy and glamorous the life of Hermione Granger was not. There was nothing particularly alluring about the long hours and heavy workload, though this somehow slipped past most members of the wizarding community. She often had clients—schoolgirls mostly on Hogwarts, and once even Beauxbatons holiday—who were simply curious about the life of Hermione's famous flatmate, Harry Potter. She put up with it as best she could because she was good, if not the best, and it wouldn't be long until those higher up took notice. Not that she was particularly interested in advancement.

Though for many it required a full-scale war to realize what was truly important, Hermione had always known that there was more to her life than just her cleverness. She was grateful that it had gotten her this far, but she was determined to do the greater good and help those who still needed helping.

At this moment she was most concerned about Charlotte Fairclough, her newest client. Settling in to a therapeutic relationship proved tricky for some, especially those unaccustomed to revealing their emotions. Hermione's style was unconventional to the wizarding and Muggle world alike. Her blurred background seemed to be an advantage as it helped shape the sort of environment in which her clients would be most comfortable. Firstly, she referred to the people she interviewed every day as “clients,” not “patients.” She was also aversed to the Muggle practice of scribbling down unintelligible and meaningless notes while a patient droned from a leather couch. Eventually she settled on her present method.

For almost five minutes, Charlotte had been sitting in Hermione's office. The latter's delayed arrival would allow Charlotte to bond with the room, noting its features and getting an idea of its tardy occupant gradually, rather than upsetting her with an overwhelming upsurge of information. Then Hermione would enter, with Charlotte already somewhat familiar with the room, and the session already underway.

As she stood outside her own office door, Hermione took a deep and calming breath. It would be foolish for her to walk into an interview distracted by personal issues, and the conversation which she knew would follow might dredge up some of her own painful memories. For that reason alone, Hermione dreaded these sorts of discussions.

She lingered one last moment, then raised her right arm—the one not laden with parchments and her briefcase—to knock on the heavy oak door. She strode in confidently, smiling a greeting to her newest client and holding out her hand. She was immediately taken with the charming matronly woman who strongly resembled Mrs. Weasley but for her clear hazel eyes and many more wrinkles.

“You must be Mrs. Fairclough,” she asserted warmly.

“Yes, yes I am,” the aged witch replied. Hermione introduced herself and offered the woman a seat in one of the armchairs beside the faux fire. “Please call me Charlotte. No one's called me Mrs. Fairclough in years, though I suppose that all will come up later….” She nervously folded and unfolded her hands in her lap, caught herself staring in Hermione's direction and looked away quickly.

Hermione smiled to herself guessing the reason behind Charlotte's staring as she seated herself across from her. Politely she asked, “Is there anything the matter, Charlotte?”

The woman blushed slightly and shrugged her shoulders. She seemed to laugh embarrassedly at herself as she answered, “I'm sorry, I've read about you and everything but I just expected you to be—”

“Older?” asked Hermione, a wide grin on her face. At the woman's nod, she continued, “Yes, I get that a lot actually. I'm regretting the day it doesn't come up.”

The sixty-something witch chuckled and relaxed back into her armchair, removing her lacy, cream colored gloves as she did so. Charlotte looked around the spacious room with interest, her hazel eyes wistfully resting on the collection of moving photographs on the mantel.

“That was taken at my friend Ron's wedding last June,” explained Hermione, indicating the largest photograph in the center where Charlotte's eyes had lingered longest. Hermione, Harry, Ginny, Neville, Ron, and Luna's picture selves grinned and waved from the sepia-toned portrait, while every so often the bride and groom leaned in for a kiss and the rest of the group feigned disgust.

Charlotte seemed to come back from a distance. She blinked to clear her misty eyes and admitted with a shy smile, “I'm sorry, I'm not really sure how to begin.”

Hermione nodded and leaned back into her chair. “Why don't we just start with why you're here today?” she offered, turning her palms up in a symbolic gesture of trust and honesty.

“Well,” Charlotte began timidly, “About three years ago just at the end of the war, my husband was killed.” She closed her eyes at the admission but when she opened them, her voice gained confidence and she continued. “Before the war began to escalate, we discussed our options. In end we decided to fight alongside the other trained witches and wizards despite our age, because both of us had quick wands in our youth. Maybe that wasn't the wisest decision, but neither of us wanted to stay at home. We have no children, so there didn't seem to be a lot to lose.”

She stopped abruptly, losing herself in the memory. Hermione interrupted gently, probing the woman's past for more information. “Did you discuss the possibility of one of you dying?”

Charlotte nodded in the affirmative. “It's easier to accept the possibility when it's not the reality,” she replied wisely.

Hermione flinched slightly. Unknowingly, Charlotte had just reiterated almost the exact words Hermione had told herself many times during the war. It wasn't difficult to accept that her best friends might not make it when they were both alive and well beside her. She remembered looking into Harry and Ron's serious faces as they sat around a weak fire somewhere, praying to any deity who deigned to listen to spare her friends from death and pain. Luckily Harry managed to defeat Voldemort in the most important battle of the wizarding world and the trio emerged from the war relatively unscathed, but not everyone was as fortunate. The names of thousands of casualties were posted on parchment in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. Hermione tried to ignore the memory of hundreds of crying and screaming women as they read out the names of the dead.

“During one of the final battles, we were separated. I refused to even consider that he could be gone until I read his name,” Charlotte proceeded.

Hermione blinked away the remaining images. “And what did you do after you found out?”

“I'm sure you agree, Miss Granger, that war is not the best time to allow yourself emotion,” she pointed out rationally. “I had to go on fighting, but it often came back to me at night. I couldn't bear to think about him during the day. Does that make me a callous person, Miss Granger?”

Hermione shook her head. “On the contrary, it just proves that you're human. In survival situations when your primary goal is simply to maintain living, emotions are a dangerous distraction at best. This is an intrinsic component of a soldier's mentality in the first place—otherwise one might question the morality behind one's actions, whether what one is doing is murder or justice, et cetera. The method is often known as `compartmentalizing,' or perhaps the Scarlet O'Hara Syndrome,” she assured her with a kind smile.

“I apologize but I'm not very familiar with Muggle cinema, Miss Granger,” laughed Charlotte.

“I understand,” she assented. “Now, can you tell me more about the days following the loss of your husband?”

While Hermione was reluctant to put Charlotte into any sort of category to classify her stage in the grieving process just yet, this question might help her determine the woman's attention to detail proceeding her husband's death. In a later session, Hermione might recommend the use of a pensieve to further explore a client's traumatic experience. But that would have to be far into the future, so that both Charlotte and Hermione could wholly disconnect themselves from the scene and the former would not suffer any sort of relapse.

Charlotte was silent a moment, staring at the flickering flames in the fireplace. “War is funny in that it brings out the best in some people and the worst in others. I saw wizards of all ages, races, and backgrounds out there on the battlefield. They all blur together but in a way I will never forget a single one.

“I was hit and put out of commission a few weeks before the Final Battle and a few days after my husband. I remember it seemed so hopeless out there—buildings were still smoldering as the rain doused them, screams in all directions, mist clung to the ground making it hard to see what or who you were tripping over.” She shivered and Hermione remembered all too well the feel of the war, the drooping morale. How Harry had managed to stay above it she wasn't sure.

Charlotte's eyes locked with Hermione's. She spoke determinedly, “My husband was a good man, Miss Granger. I'm not here to forget him, I just need to accept that he's gone where I cannot follow. At least not for a while,” she added with a wink.

Hermione returned the gesture. “Does that mean you'll be coming back next week?”

“Yes indeed,” she answered at once. “I like the look of you, Miss Granger. You're astute, there's no doubt about that,” Charlotte observed in much the same way a grandmother would appraise her grandchild.

Hermione chuckled and replied, “You sound just like the Sorting Hat at Hogwarts. Anyway, I think we're done here for today.” Both women stood up and Charlotte began to re-don her gloves, hat, and cloak as Hermione escorted her to the door of the office. “Why don't you speak to Isabelle at the receptionist's desk where you came in and see if the two of you can't set up a schedule for the next month or so?” Hermione suggested while holding the door.

Charlotte nodded and made her goodbyes. Just before turning to leave, Charlotte turned around and addressed Hermione a little shyly, “Miss Granger, I was wondering if I might ask you a personal question?”

Though she was inwardly a little wary at this turnaround, given the sorts of questions she was still asked in interviews by journalists and teenaged witches alike, Hermione doubted that Charlotte would breach that line of politeness. “Please call me Hermione,” she answered by way of reply.

“Hermione,” said Charlotte, trying out the name on her lips and smiling, “Have you ever been in love?”

Hermione knew it was not asked because Charlotte was intentionally prying into Hermione's personal life or because she was a subscriber to Witch Weekly, but because she was concerned that Hermione might not be able to empathize with Charlotte's situation if she'd never experienced love and loss herself. For that reason, Hermione gave her a bittersweet smile and a sincere nod.

Charlotte accepted this, shook Hermione's hand, and departed down the hall, her heeled shoes reverberating against the wooden floor as she walked. Hermione closed the door softly behind her and crossed over the thick rug to the mantelpiece on the other side of the room. Charlotte's last question lingered in her mind, especially as she gazed at the moving photographs in front of her.

Just next to Ron and Luna's wedding picture was Hermione's secret favorite—she and Harry sitting on the couch of Ginny's old flat two years previous having a playful argument about something already forgotten. Both had adopted angry expressions, though it appeared that a smirk was threatening to break out at any moment. The next second Harry was gesticulating wildly toward his mouth, as Hermione had just used a silencing charm on him. Hermione fondly remembered as it was depicted in the photograph that when she'd restored his speech, they'd both burst out into a giggling spell that lasted several minutes.

Still smiling at the picture, Hermione sighed to herself. She was in love, to be sure. It was who she was in love with that was the problem. Everyone had assumed that because it had taken so long for she and Ron to get together, once they did it would be forever. However, that ship had sailed, and Hermione wasn't eager to do a repeat performance with anyone else. Often she'd listed the pros and cons of just admitting her feelings to the object of her affection, but no matter how she tabulated it, she just would not risk their friendship. Harry had been a colossal part of her life almost as far back as she could remember.

She tore her eyes from the mantelpiece and headed for her desk where a stack of post waited for her. A glance at the clock informed her that it was nearly lunch, a time held in high esteem by her flaming red-haired best friend. Since there was no appointment scheduled for the afternoon, Hermione decided to leave the post and the report for Charlotte's session until then. She straightened up her desk and headed to the rack by the door to retrieve her hanging cloak.

A moment later she was striding purposefully toward the reception room to see if Isabelle wanted anything while she was out. While she struggled with the catch on her handbag, a deep booming voice rang out in the hall.

“Miss Granger! Just what do you think you are doing?!”

Hermione deftly hid her wince and turned to see the bulky form of her loathsome boss, Mr. Ebenezer Powell. He resembled her memory of Vernon Dursley so well that Hermione often grew angry just thinking about him. His towering frame capped off over six and a half feet, while his tremendous girth strained the buttons on his white collared shirt. He was Muggle-born, just like Hermione, but it wasn't obvious by his constant negative remarks about them. If keeping her job for the sake of people like Charlotte Fairclough wasn't so important to her, Hermione would have taken him down a peg or two. As such, she could barely stand him, but made a good show of appearing to.

“I'm heading to lunch, Mr. Powell,” she answered simply.

“Not on my sickle, you're not. There are still,” he paused, pulled out his pocket watch and screwed up his eyes to do the arithmetic. Hermione thought he looked like a crumpled up piece of old parchment, but apparently he wasn't finished, “six work minutes until lunch time.”

Hermione repressed an exasperated sigh. “Yes, but there are a few matters I need to check on with Isabelle before I go,” she said through gritted teeth.

Powell grunted to hide his confusion. “Who is Isabelle?”

She restrained herself with some difficulty from rolling her eyes. “The receptionist.”

“Oh,” he said, not in the least embarrassed that he didn't know his own employee's name. “Carry on then, but you'd better be back on time. And I want that article I asked you to draw up for the Daily Prophet by five o'clock!”

“I've already given it to you, Mr. Powell,” Hermione said. “On Tuesday,” she added, hoping it would jog his memory.

“Oh yes,” he recovered. Hermione's relief was short-lived. “Yes, of course, then why don't you draw up another for the special April edition of Witch Weekly?”

She fought a groan and hitched a fake smile on her face. “Will do, Mr. Powell.”

“Good,” he replied, raising himself up and down on his toes with his hands behind his back. “You know, you're good for publicity, Granger. For some reason, the papers love you. Keep it up,” he said, clapping her on the back and causing her to stumble forward.

She was saved from slamming her nose into the wooden floor by a pair of strong arms that had emerged from nowhere. After being placed upright she discovered the identity of her rescuer. Mark Bonner, a trainee Healer in the medical department of St. Mungo's, was one of her closest friends at work. A few years her senior, he'd been distinguished after the war with an Order of Merlin, Second Class for bravery and valor. But to Hermione he was just Mark, an attractive wizard with a heavy dose of wit and a conspicuous taste for clever woman. In all intents and purposes, Hermione admitted to herself yet again, he would be perfect for her—if only she loved him.

As she dusted herself off, she offered her thanks and asked, “What brings you to the slovenly depths of the psychotherapy department, Mark?”

He handed back her handbag before they began to walk whence he had come. “Oh, you know, just seeing if you wanted to catch an early lunch on my sickle.”

She credited his imitation with a laugh and replied, “Definitely, I'm absolutely famished. I had a new client today, which is always a little nerve-wracking.”

Mark nodded in understanding. “Good, do you think it went well though?”

Considering for a moment, Hermione answered, “Yes, I do, although generally speaking it's a little soon to tell. I'll have to go over the transcript that my quill took later to see if I can work with what she gave me today.”

“Excellent, excellent. Listen, do you mind stopping by my office before we go? I forgot to lock of the cupboards again, and I really ought to secure that before I get another lecture for Healer Augustus Pye. Merlin, the man's a certified Healer for two seconds and already he's rubbing it in everyone's face. Anyway, you don't mind, do you?”

“No, that's fine,” she shrugged. “You're still coming tomorrow, right?”

“Of course,” Mark answered as though it was obvious. “Think I'd miss the chance to dine with the famous Harry Potter?” he added sarcastically.

She rolled her eyes and waved to Isabelle as they left the reception room and headed for the lifts, making a mental note to discuss Charlotte Fairclough's schedule before the end of the workday.

Together Hermione and Mark rode up to the main floor where they had to navigate through the throngs of wizards waiting to be seen or directed to the proper floor for treatment. A few minutes later, Hermione followed Mark into a storeroom and watched him sort through nearly fifty keys he carried on a thick brass ring. She hummed to herself idly and fingered the various boxes and bottles of potion ingredients.

Suddenly she stopped at the cabinet that Mark was locking. “Conium Maculatum? Mark, isn't hemlock a poison?” she wondered, a little unsettled that so strong a poison found a place in a healing institution.

He shifted uncomfortably. “It's not something we shout about, but yeah,” he admitted. “It's rarely used, but sometimes needed when a patient requests a speedy death.”

Hermione unconsciously grimaced at his crude language, but nodded her understanding. It was discomforting to imagine ever having to be in a situation where resorting to poison was the best option.

“So who's ready to eat?”

~~~*#*~~~

Several hours and a small detour later, Hermione apparated directly into the flat she shared with Harry and called out, “Harry, I'm home and I've brought food!”

A tall figure with messy black hair stumbled into the entrance hall, rubbing his hands together fiendishly, “Excellent! What have you got here?” Digging through the bags, he repeated his exclamation and added to Hermione's delight, “Chinese! Hermione, I could kiss you.”

He relieved her of the bags of Chinese takeaway boxes and set off to prepare plates in the kitchen, while Hermione cheerfully meandered down the hall to her bedroom to change out of her workclothes, uplifted by Harry's offhand comment. Would it really be so bad if she just confessed her feelings, she wondered to herself for what felt like the millionth time. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in its crisp white blouse and black knee-length pleated skirt and sighed hopelessly. “Just give up, Hermione,” she murmured sulkily, repeating yet again what had become her mantra over the years.

Minutes later in a comfortable pair of brown fleece pajama bottoms and a solid t-shirt, Hermione approached the sound of opening and closing cabinets and the gentle clinking of dishes. She paused at the kitchen threshold and watched silently as Harry prepared their dinner.

He noticed her slumped against the doorframe and asked, “Rough week? You look completely knackered.”

“Why thank you, Harry, just what a girl wants to hear,” she replied grumpily, taking the proffered plate and cutlery and heading to the living room.

“Well it could be worse, Hermione,” said an unusually chipper Harry, following her to the couch and shooting flames wandlessly into the fireplace as an afterthought. “Do you know what I learned today? That you should never put a beverage and rubbing alcohol anywhere in the same vicinity.”

Hermione raised an eyebrow, resisting the urge to smile though she knew the corners of her mouth were twitching. “Pray, how did this life lesson escape you all these years?”

“Well,” said Harry with mock arrogance, rubbing his chin in what he obviously thought was a debonair manner. “I didn't have much of a childhood, what with conquering Dark Lords and all. Well, one at any rate.”

This earned him a playful swat from Hermione, who turned back to her food and absently began, “I met with a new client today. An elderly witch named Charlotte. She wanted to discuss her husband.”

“War widow?” asked Harry, mixing up his rice.

“Yes,” answered Hermione. She stared into the strengthening fire without really seeing it. “I don't know, though,” she continued, turning to Harry as if asking a question. “I've never taken to any of my clients this quickly. She's just so…lovely,” she finished, unsatisfied with her description of the amiable old woman. “A lot like Mrs. Weasley, I suppose.”

Harry nodded to her as though he understood completely. “You're seeing her again then?”

“Definitely,” she replied. `Next week sometime, Isabelle said.”

The two lapsed into a comfortable silence, their dirty dishes stacked on the coffee table. Harry rested his feet on the tall pile of Quidditch magazines and situated both hands comfortably behind his head.

Hermione curled up against the nearest couch arm, cursing her inability to just spill the beans for once. I get people to do it every day, she thought, it shouldn't be that difficult. She fleetingly registered how romantic the scene could be—a heartfelt confession of love between two best friends in front of a blazing fire. With a wide yawn she dismissed the notion and asked, “Anyway, how was your day?
He shrugged. “Oh you know, same old. Arrest here, false alarm there—those never get old,” he said sarcastically. “By the way, you finally get to meet Persephone. I invited her to lunch with us tomorrow.”

Hermione pushed down the plume of upwelling jealousy at the thought of Harry's work partner and managed an unconcerned, “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Harry continued, stifling a yawn, “I thought, you know, we could try and set her up with Mark. Get him off your back for a bit.”

Hermione closed her eyes and smiled to herself, jealous forgotten. “That sounds lovely, Harry,” she murmured before falling peacefully asleep beside him on the couch.

A/N: Hmmm, re-reading it, I'd say it's sorta dull in the beginning. What do you think? I know there was only a little Harry here, but more will come! Reviews are appreciated! Wink wink, nudge nudge.

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A/N: This is a re-edited version. I finally got around to spell-checking and everything so that I don't cringe when I read over my old stuff. Anyway, please read on and let me know what you think of the story so far!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this fic, except maybe Charlotte, Mark, Persephone, etc. You get the point.

Chapter 2~~New Day, New(s) Article, New Acquaintances

The Saturday morning rays were insistent. Hermione barely had time to stir before her sleep-addled brain registered that she was unable to move. Fleeting and irrational fears of paralysis made her twitch jerkily to remove the offending obstruction. Her eyes shot open to identify the source of leaden weight across her midsection—Harry's right arm.

She tensed up immediately not wanting to wake him, though if the soft snores coming from his direction were any indication, the man was out. Reason told her to revel in the moment while it lasted because this sort of opportunity—being in such intimate contact with the man she loved, whether of not he returned the sentiments—rarely presented itself. But because Hermione had about as much luck as those rabbits whose feet end up serving as good luck charms, Harry soon shifted his arm and woke himself up.

“Mmmmmorning Hermione,” he yawned, stretching out his legs that had somehow found their way on the couch during the night.

“Ermorninarry,” she squeaked in his response.

Simultaneously they looked down at his hand still resting on her stomach and back up at each other. He pulled it away sharply and both made embarrassed excuses to leave the couch and hide their blushes, though Hermione figured they were reddening for very different reasons. Sure she hugged him and dared to kiss him on the cheek every so often but when it came right down it, Harry just wasn't a touchy-feely kind of person—which of course made this sleep grope situation even more perplexing.

When they met a half hour later in the kitchen for breakfast with rather stiff necks, Hermione was determined to pretend it hadn't happened—at least until when she was alone and could recall the exact feeling of his rough hands on her bare stomach.

Harry shuffled into his seat across the table from her, setting the steaming plates of eggs and bacon gingerly on the placemat in front of him. Since the kitchen and dining area were adjoined to the living, the couch loomed in the corners of their vision like the metaphorical elephant. The awkwardness between the two was as thick as a bad cliché, but finally Harry spoke in a forced casual tone that was a little too loud to be natural.

“Sorry about earlier,” he apologized. “On the couch, I mean,” he added as though it hadn't been the only thing she was thinking about.

For her part, Hermione feigned confusion and arranged her features in a way to suggest that she was trying to recall that particular offense. Waiting an appropriate amount of time, she allowed her face to relax into a cheeky grin. “Oh that's all right, Harry. You know my feminine wiles are irresistible to men.”

Harry's shoulders grew visibly less tense and countered with a saucy wink of his own, “To all men named Mark, you mean.”

Having no witty retort to that, Hermione huffed and rolled her eyes. Stirring her tea she recalled the note Ron had sent the previous day. “Oh, I forgot to tell you yesterday: Ron says he can't meet up for lunch today.”

Harry furrowed his brow. How he managed to shovel an entire slice of toast—a feat frequently undertaken by the aforementioned redhead—and still look pensive was lost on Hermione. “Idee thay ooai?” he said through his mouthful, then, seeing Hermione's wrinkled nose, swallowed painfully and repeated, “Did he say why?”

She shook her head in the negative and sipped her tea thoughtfully. “No, he just mentioned something about a conference to discuss expanding Weasley Wizarding Wheezes to the Continent, but that Luna's still coming.”

The third member of the trio had honed his chess skills into a successful career as a marketing strategist for Fred and George's joke shop, now a joke shop chain. On any given day of the week it was likely to find Ron just arriving or about to depart to some faraway country. Hermione often joked that it was fortunate Ron had finally learned how to Apparate properly, otherwise Magical Reversal Squad would chasing after parts of him all throughout the UK. Harry always cringed at the mention of Splinching, he himself opting for the safer but slower method of broomstick flying. If an Auror assignment required travel, as they occasionally did, he and his partner, Persephone Perris, were often issued a round-trip portkey for the journey.

“Better than cauldron bottom thickness,” pointed out Harry rationally. “Does that make it five for lunch then?”

Hermione smiled, a lot more cheerful with food in her stomach. “Looks like it,” she replied, leaning back in her chair. She looked on the table and nearby chair for the newspaper.

“Harry, have you seen the Prophet?” she asked, ducking under the table to search further.

The highly trained and skilled Auror cleared his throat nervously. He scooted his chair back abruptly, the wood on wood scraping of the chair on the floor causing Hermione to wince. “Er, they didn't print one today,” he said, bending over the stove to adjust the heat on the burner under the pan of sausages and not meeting her eyes.

“They didn't print one,” she repeated skeptically, one eyebrow raised.

Harry cleared his throat again. “Nope, must be some kind of news holiday or something,” he reasoned with a shrug, still training his sight on the stove.

Hermione scoffed. “There's no such thing as a `news holiday,' Harry, you of all people should know that. The day the Prophet goes on holiday is the day I—Wait.” She stopped abruptly, noticing Harry peek at her from the corner of his eye and take in a huge breath.

“Wait,” she repeated. “They've printed something about me, haven't they?”

Harry didn't answer right away but appeared to be turning blue with the breath that he'd been holding.

“Haven't they, Harry?” she said more forcefully.

He finally turned in her direction, bringing a sizzling plate full of sausages with him to the table. When he did speak it was as though he was trying to talk her off the side of a building. “Hermione, remember when Ginny took that job just out of Hogwarts at the Prophet and she complained that she could hardly get a sentence past the editors the way she'd written it originally?” he asked gently.

“Yes,” she answered slowly, hoping for her sake that he was lying, despite the fact that she could never drudge up a time that he'd done so. Except maybe in fourth year about the egg. And in sixth when he was trying to hide his budding feelings for Ginny. And in-- she shook her head; this wasn't helping.

“Let me see it, Harry,” she demanded, her hand held out expectantly.

For a split second if looked as though he was going to refuse, but then he released his breath, admitting defeat. “It's not really about you,” he amended. “Just an article by you that's been heavily censored.” He retrieved the paper from where he'd hidden it under his stack of Quidditch magazines, the one place he'd figure she wouldn't look. Of course, he didn't realize that she, knowing him, would search this location first. She accepted it from him and ignored his don't-say-I-didn't-warn-you expression.

With an angry flourish she unfolded the parchment and disappeared behind it, her eyes scouring the page for a glimpse of relevant text. Finally she found it beneath a large cut-out two-for-one coupon of a half pound of insect-repellent sugar and an equal measure of sugar-repellent insects:

Hermione Granger, live-in best friend of The Chosen One, Harry Potter, 22 tells all about her fabulous new career counseling grief-stricken widows in an exclusive article for The Daily Prophet.

“I just knew that I should spend my life helping people,” gushed the twenty-three-year-old witch from behind her mahogany desk. “After years by Harry's side during and before the war, I figured it was the least I could do.”

When asked to comment on her relationship with her famously talented flatmate, the renownedly clever witch hid her smile behind a well-manicured hand and declined to comment. Cont. pg. 16-19

“I don't believe it,” she said through gritted teeth. “They didn't keep anything!”

“No, that's not true, Hermione. Your desk is mahogany,” he teased, reading the article over her shoulder.

She shot him a death glare. “This is not the time, Harry,” she warned, though all of the fight had left her. She refolded the paper and pressed the creases absent-mindedly, slumping against the nearest chair so that it was pushed roughly back against the table. Harry must have sensed her disappointment because he remained dutifully silent, waiting for her to speak.

“It's just that I thought I'd finally shown psychotherapy in a positive light,” she said at last. “It was naïve of me to think that they wouldn't change my article into yet another testimony of my love for you, those publicity hounds!” she growled angrily.

Harry looked at her with mingled feelings of fright and bemusement. Hermione mentally retraced her words, the glaring admission of her feelings echoing unpleasantly over and over in her head. She turned to him intending to treat it as a joke, but Harry's face wore an odd expression and her laugh died before leaving her throat.

A loud crack from the living room saved the pair from an off-putting moment. They both spun on the spot to face the sound, wand hands twitching in preparation for the need of defense. This particular visitor did not warrant such behavior, but chimeras rarely change their spots.

Ron raised his hand in greeting. “G'morning Harry, Hermione,” he said, nodding to each one in turn. “I'm here to pick you up for lunch.”

Hermione and Harry glanced at each other in confusion and then at the kitchen clock, and finally both of their watches.

“Ron, it's not even eleven o'clock yet. I thought we were meeting at twelve thirty?” queried Harry, worried that he'd mistaken the time.

“And I thought you weren't even coming?” added Hermione.

“Ah yes, but the plans have changed,” Ron explained, rubbing his hands together and making himself comfortable on the couch. “It happens that I am not needed after all on the Continent. Fred is going in my place.”

Hermione straightened one of the couch cushions and sat down next to him. “But aren't they expecting you?” she asked curiously.

“Yes, and they'll be getting me too. Or at least, they think they will,” he replied enigmatically.

Harry raised an eyebrow and seated himself in the nearby armchair. “What are you on about?”

“Well, apparently the product I was supposed to be talking up is some kind of new disguise, like a polyjuice potion you can wear in cloak form without having to brew it,” he explained while thumbing threw Harry's magazines. “Fred went wearing one of the prototypes, so he'll look like me during the whole meeting, and then when he takes it off, they'll see it's obviously not. Dramatic but effective. The only problem is that it sort of distorts the face of the person you're trying to take the guise of. Made my nose look really long.”

“Your nose is really long,” Harry deadpanned.

“Thanks, mate, knew I set myself up for that one,” Ron replied with a laugh.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “So when will this…polyjuice cloak hit the market?” she asked.

“Eh sometime in the next month of two. Fred and George are still perfecting it. Still, what do you reckon, polyjuice without the wearing off!” he proclaimed.

“Could be handy,” said Harry shrugging his shoulders to Hermione.

She shrugged back, undecided. “Anyway, why are you here so early, Ron?”

Ron broke out into a wide grin as though suddenly remembering something. “I have something to show you guys,” he said, standing up and heading to the front door of the flat. “C'mon, Luna's outside with it.”

“Ron, you left her outside in the rain!” admonished Hermione incredulously, taking Harry's proffered hand to help her up from the couch. She held it a little longer than she would have Ron's, for obvious reasons, but she thanked him by aiming a grateful in his direction as she followed Ron out the door and down the three flights of stairs to the ground level.

Immediately after opening the door, the three wizards were assaulted by the heavy late March rain. Hermione and Harry looked down the street in both directions, dodging passers-by and their lethal umbrellas, but neither could spot Ron's wife.

“Where is she then?” Harry asked Ron in slight annoyance; none of them had thought to bring an umbrella of their own. Hermione quickly whipped out her wand and cast an impervious charm on herself and Harry, then turned to Ron to do the same.

But Ron was looking straight ahead with a proud smile on his face. Hermione and Harry followed his gaze to where Luna was sitting in a brand-new, bright orange Mini Cooper.

“Isn't she beautiful,” said Ron tearfully, strongly reminiscent of Hagrid on the day Norbert hatched.

“It's a…car,” said Hermione, looking to Ron for an explanation.

He was completely unfazed by her lack of enthusiasm. “Of course it's a car,” he said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, which in this case it was.

“But then…why do you have it, Ron?” asked Harry haltingly.

“To drive, Harry,” he said, beginning to become exasperated that his friends weren't over the moon about his recent purchase. “Haven't you ever felt it?” he asked Harry with a glazed over expression on his face. “The hum of the engine, the grip of the tires on the road, the countryside whipping past your window, the—”

“Nausea because you have motion sickness?” interjected Hermione. “Honestly Ron, do you even have a license?”

“Of course I do,” he replied, though it came out as more of a mild mumble.

“A license to kill,” chimed in Harry with a grin, which he immediately dropped when he saw Hermione's glare.

She caught his eye and they had a silent argument until Ron interrupted by clearing his throat. Hermione feared for the citizens of England, what with Ron on the road and all, which she tried to communicate to Harry with a determined eyebrow raise. Harry seemed to suggest with a slight twinge of his shoulders that maybe she should just have a little faith in their mutual best friend, to which Hermione rolled her eyes in what clearly was an are-you-kidding-me? gesture. It was Harry's turn to glare.

“Uh, guys?” he said tentatively, “What do you think?”

“It's lovely, Ron,” answered Hermione, slightly bitter that she had admitted defeat in her and Harry's little nonverbal discussion.

Harry beamed and clapped Ron on the back good-naturedly. “Yeah, mate, excellent way to spend a few thousand galleons, er, pounds,” he concurred. “And when does Hermione get to take a spin in it? She is the only one with a valid Muggle driver's license, after all,” Harry joked.

“Oh I dunno, Harry,” Ron instantly replied, casting a nervous glance at Hermione, who had returned to studying the car. “This car is my baby. If anyone hurt—”

“That's all right, Ron,” interrupted Hermione. “My driving skills are a bit rusty anyway. By the way, why is the car painted orange?”

“Chudley Canons,” Harry and Ron instantly replied in unison before breaking out into laughter.

“You're ridiculous,” said Hermione in Ron's direction, though she too had a smile on her face.

Ron sobered a moment, placing his hands on his hips and turning his head slightly to the side so that he looked rather majestic. Of course the billowing robes added to the effect as well. “No, I'm a fan,” he corrected quite seriously for him.

Hermione chuckled but turned it into a cough so as not to ruin Ron's little moment. He eventually came back to himself and blushed a little, then told Hermione and Harry to get a move on so that he could drive the two of them to lunch. This explained why he'd come so early—their destination was about an hour's drive away and they would now have to contend with the heavy London traffic.

Hermione and Harry dashed back upstairs and hurriedly dressed themselves. They met in the entryway by the door, where Harry helped Hermione into her cloak and she absently smoothed the creases in his. Neither really gave a second thought to the intimate gestures, but concentrated on preparing themselves for a dangerous journey with Ron at the wheel.

Returning outside presented a new problem: how were four practically full-sized adults supposed to fit comfortably inside such a tiny vehicle? Hermione hesitantly approached the driver's side where Ron had opened the door and pulled forward the seat so that she could enter. He winked at her reluctant expression before she thrust herself through the small gap between the back of Ron's chair and the doorframe, immediately plopping into the incredibly spacious and obviously magically enlarged backseat. Harry's surprised face mirrored her own as he toppled into his seat from Luna's side. It seems neither had reckoned the seating arrangements with magic.

Stretching out luxuriously on the leather seat, Hermione complimented, “Not bad, Ron.”

Ron fumbled with his seatbelt a moment before hearing the latch click resolutely. He looked at her in the rear view mirror as he put his key in the ignition. “Coming from you, Hermione, I'll take that as praise indeed,” he joked.

She once again rolled her eyes as she and Harry cheerfully greeted Ron's wife, Luna. She blinked happily at them behind a dreamy smile; marriage had obviously not changed her much.

“All right, Luna, where are we headed?” Ron asked as he put the car in reverse and placed his and behind her headrest to look out the back window for traffic.

Hermione was impressed that he was so observant of the rules and methods of driving, even if wasn't technically allowed to drive. From the front passenger seat, Luna acted as navigator. Hermione and Harry remained mostly silent during the journey, raising their eyebrows at each other to express dubious admissions that Ron was actually a decent driver. That is, until they reached the restaurant where they were meeting Mark and Persephone.

“Ron, honestly, it doesn't matter!” exclaimed Hermione as Ron made yet another round of the parking lot. They'd been circling for over fifteen minutes and it was almost time to claim their reservation.

“I'm just trying to get a good spot, Hermione,” grumbled Ron, part of his tongue sticking slightly out of the side of his mouth as he concentrated on the stalls on either side of the lane.

“Well it won't matter if we miss our reservation! Don't you want to eat?” she pointed out, hoping to motivate the part of Ron that responded favorably to food of any kind.

Ron said nothing and ignored Harry's suggestions of possible locations. “Too far, Harry,” was all he said for the next five minutes.

Finally Hermione grew impatient. “Stop the car, Ron,” she demanded. “I'm getting out.”

“What are you on about, Hermione? Just wait a second and I'll get us a spot,” Ron replied, making yet another turn in the opposite direction of the restaurant. Suddenly the car lurched to a stop and the gearshift locked in park. “Hey, wha?” cried Ron, fiddling with the stick worriedly.

“Let me out, Ron,” Hermione repeated, looking at his reflection in the rearview mirror.

He gazed at her angrily for a second but wisely decided not to protest further, probably because Luna and Harry were also present. Opening the door, he moved the front seat forward and even offered her and hand to help her out, though he gave her an ugly look when he knew they were both out of eyeshot of the car's occupants.

“Thank you,” she said nicely, pointing her wand at the front of the car to restore power. She bent down and said to Harry and Luna, “I'm going to check in and meet you guys up there.”

Without another word, she began the somewhat lengthy trek to the restaurant. On the sidewalk she hailed the form of Mark, who she could make out was talking to a pretty, petite brunette. For a moment she felt unsteady but she dismissed it, blaming lack of exercise.

“Hi,” she said, slightly breathless from walking so fast.

“Hermione!” he cried in surprise. “I've just had the pleasure of meeting the sixth member of our party. Let me introduce Miss Persephone Perris—”

“That's supposed to be my job,” interjected Harry laughingly, who came up from behind Hermione offering his hand to Mark. The men shook and Harry turned to Hermione and winked conspiratorially. Hermione wondered why she put up with his relentless teasing regarding Mark's affections for her. For his part, Mark gaped only very little at the hero in front of him. Though the trainee healer had met Harry a few times in passing, Ron secretly classified him as belonging in the “marginally star-struck” category.

“Anyway, Mark, since you've already met Persephone, let me introduce her to rest of the group here,” Harry continued moving around so that he and Persephone were facing the other pair. “This here is Hermione Granger, my `live-in best friend,'” he said, deliberately quoting that morning's Prophet with a devilish wag of eyebrows. “She works at St. Mungo's with Mark here, though in a different department.”

“I counsel witches and wizards who have gone through an emotionally or physically traumatic experience,” Hermione explained, politely holding out her hand to be shaken.

The other witch appeared to be impressed as she grasped and shook Hermione's hand firmly. “It's great to finally meet you Hermione,” she said, opening her mouth to reveal a set of even white teeth. “Harry's mentioned you quite a few times, of course.”

“Nothing bad, I hope,” came Hermione's conventional reply.

Persephone let loose a throaty laugh that seemed to contradict her girlish appearance. Hermione judged her to be a little younger than she and Harry, though not much. Harry's entrance into the Auror training program was delayed by a year when he returned to Hogwarts to complete his education, so it made sense that he would be partnered with someone a little younger.

“Of course not,” Persephone said. “It's generally on the lines of `When Ron, Hermione and I were twelve, we hid out in a girls' lavatory to brew Polyjuice Potion,' or something from your various adventures.”

“Misadventures, more like,” Hermione laughed. “Were you at Hogwarts as well?”

Persephone's face clouded for a fraction of a second, but then she broke out into a small smile. “Yeah, my brother Thomas and I were a year behind you, in Ravenclaw,” she answered, confirming Hermione's theory of her age.

Luckily Ron and Luna arrived a few moments later and, after the necessary introductions, the sextet broke into pairs as they entered the restaurant. Hermione looked forward to see Mark blushing at something Harry was saying to him. She hoped it had to do with his idea for matching Mark up with Persephone rather than just taking the mickey. She didn't want Mark to think that she often discussed his behavior with Harry at home.

She turned to see Persephone studying her curiously. The younger witch blushed shyly and joked while playfully nudging her in the arm, “So did your parents have a Greek fixation too, or was that just mine?”

Hermione laughed at the stealth at which Persephone had brought the half-exhausted topic of the oddity of her name. “No, the whole thing is far less interesting than that. I think my parents were just trying to be witty. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a mouthful for most children, so I went through my first few years of school with various odd nicknames.”

“Tell me about it,” said Persephone emphatically as the group obediently followed the waiter to be seated. She sat between Hermione and Luna and pointed out facetiously, “But at least you don't share your name with the goddess of the Underworld.”

“True,” remarked Hermione. “But she's also associated with the changing of the seasons—winter to spring and all that, when Persephone visited her mother, Demeter. Perhaps that's the meaning your parents intended,” smiled, thinking she would be amused.

But she mistaken. Persephone's eyes clouded again momentarily before she caught herself. She smiled apologetically and leaned in toward Hermione behind her menu to whisper, “Bit of a sticky spot, that. Not on very good terms with the parents as of late.”

Hermione nodded her understanding but stayed silent, figuring Persephone wasn't the sort of person that went around lamenting her misfortunes.

“They're Squibs, you see,” she explained as she scanned the meal choices, “Disowned my brother and I when we were accepted to Hogwarts. He was all I had growing up, so I don't really see my mother as a Demeter any more than I see Hogwarts as Hades.”

“I see,” said Hermione sympathetically. She was reminded of how she was that her parents, although Muggles unfamiliar with the magical world, never forbid her from using magic, however daunting it might have seemed to them.

The rest of the meal passed gaily with several attempts on both Hermione and Harry's parts to hook up Mark and Persephone, as well as several somewhat tipsy toasts to Ron's new car by the men. Hermione was pleased to see Mark get on so well with her as they conversed across the table. She and Harry frequently shot pleased looks at one another when there seemed to be progress in their plan.

After they paid for their meal, the group gathered outside to enjoy the sudden bout of sunshine. They'd been talking for only a few minutes when Harry and Persephone suddenly began rummaging in their pockets as though frantically searching for something.

“We're being paged,” explained Harry to the rest of the group as they looked on curiously. He held up what appeared to be an ordinary Muggle credit card as his partner did the same. The front of the card acted as a communicator with an agent back at the Auror department, but the entire object itself was inconspicuous enough to go by unnoticed if an Auror happened to be searched. That is of course unless the person doing the searching wondered why a wizard would carry a Muggle monetary object.

Harry and Persephone gazed intently at their cards as a mission was read to them. When it finished, both replaced their communicators in their robes and bid apologetic but hasty goodbyes.

“See you at home,” Harry told Hermione as he prepared to be portkeyed to an undisclosed location. She nodded and wished him a safe journey, knowing his dislike for that mode transport.

“It was great to finally meet you,” said Persephone, hugging Hermione and leaving her just enough time to return the sentiment before Persephone seized another portion of the portkey and vanished beside Harry.

Hermione thought back to the more eventful times of Hogwarts, where hardly a day went by that she, Harry, and Ron weren't engaging in some sort of adventure. While she did miss the intrigue of a good mystery every now and then, she had not felt the same thrill at the possibility of being caught out of bounds as Harry and Ron and did not miss the fear for her life that had been her constant companion on most of these so-called adventures. As far as she was concerned, she was quite ready to settle down.

After declining Luna's offer to chauffer her back to her flat (Ron had had a little too much to drink at lunch), she made her goodbyes and forced Mark to promise to call Persephone the following day. Deciding to use the rest of the day to completely update her notes and case file from her first session with Charlotte Fairclough, she Apparated home and set to work. If she was going to meet with the aged witch the following week, she'd best be prepared.

When she next looked at her clock she was surprised to see that two hours had passed since she'd arrived at the flat. She wrinkled her forehead a little as she wondered what sort of call Harry had had to respond to, and compulsively set about tidying up the flat.

Some minutes later, Hermione settled onto the sofa with her notes, sighing as she leaned into the cushions and pondered Charlotte's situation. She and her husband had fought side by side throughout the war, just like she and Harry had—except of course, they weren't married and Hermione hadn't been fully aware of her feelings then. Would knowing that those tingly feelings in her stomach were love have changed anything? If the war hadn't ended when it had, would she have even figured them out?

She tried to imagine what it would be like to be with someone every day and then lose them so close to the end. Life was full of what-ifs and might-have-beens, Hermione concluded, but what was most important was remembering those lost as the men and women they were rather than dwelling on their absence. Hermione smiled to herself as she drifted off to sleep. Charlotte had it right after all…

Hermione was sitting on a stone bench bordering a lush country flower garden, watching people walking purposefully past her. Some were dressed as Muggles, some in wizarding robes, but none of them spared a glance in her direction. She beamed in delight when Crookshanks jumped onto her lap to be petted.

Suddenly, she caught a glimpse of sandy blond hair belonging to a wizard striding to her right. She gently removed Crookshanks without taking her eyes off of the man and stood up trying to follow him. Her legs were much shorter and soon she lost sight of him amidst the rushing throng of travelers. She cried out in anguish at having lost her target, people pressed against her on all side, jostling her left and right—

“Hermione,” said a familiar voice gently, eliciting a smile before she was even entirely conscious.

She opened her eyes and Harry's concerned face swam in her vision as she tried to focus. Rubbing one eye with the back of her hand, she caught a glimpse of her wristwatch—she had been asleep nearly three hours! A look outside confirmed that day had already faded into night.

“Haaarry,” she yawned, stretching her arms above her head and then lowering them clear up the mess she had made of her notes while she had slept. She looked up at Harry was nervously wiping the palms of his hands on his pants as he paced from the window back to the coffee table, on which Hermione had now arranged her case file.

“What's the matter?” she asked, worried that he had yet to look at her fully since she'd woken up.

He didn't answer right away but appeared to be choosing his words carefully. Finally he perched himself on the arm of the couch, and for once Hermione didn't admonish him about ill-treating the furniture. He reached out to grasp one of her hands gently and in a soft voice she'd rarely ever heard him use asked, “Hermione, I need you to answer my questions and not ask any of your own just yet, all right?”

She bemusedly nodded, trying to push down the feeling of dread that had begun its ascent like bile into her throat. Had something happened to her parents? Why else would Harry be acting this way?

“Persephone and I answered the call today, but it was out of our department's jurisdiction,” he began, squeezing her hand. “The victim was an elderly woman about the same height and coloring of Mrs. Weasley.”

Hermione's head felt as though it would detach from her neck if she nodded any more. Unconsciously she gripped Harry's hand harder as her mind tried not to make any connections to anything else.

“The neighbors said that she'd been unhappy for a long while, having lost her husband in the war,” Harry went on. If Hermione was causing him any pain by the strength she was using to press his hand, he gave no indication. “Hermione,” he whispered as tears began to well up in her eyes, “What was the name of the woman who came to see you yesterday?”

Hermione blinked and felt the hot trail of a tear course down her face, dropping from her chin onto Harry's hand. “Charlotte Fairclough,” she choked.

Harry nodded sadly to her and let go of her hand so that he could pull her into his arms. She made no protests but allowed herself to be held; her mind had shut down from her command but memories long since passed made their way back to the surface. She screwed up her face and accepted his embrace, welcoming the warmth.

“I'm so sorry, Hermione,” he spoke softly, smoothing down her wild hair.

She pulled away and looked into his green eyes with determination. “What happened?” she asked a little roughly trying to inject some strength into her speech, though it had broken on her last word.

Harry wiped some of the tears from her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. “Poison,” he answered quietly.

She turned her head away toward the table where Charlotte's case file laid, biting her lip and nodding distractedly. She reached out a hand to close it, but Harry grabbed it and brought her attention back to him.

“You're going to be all right,” he promised.

She gave a small smile, locking eyes once more. “I know, for I am with you.”

-->

A/N: Hiya, again. Slightly re-vamped third chapter. I hope you like it!

Disclaimer: Short and sweet—not mine!

Chapter 3: A Lapse in Memory

“Please, someone please help me!” a muffled voice begged several meters away.

“I'm going, cover me,” a young woman commanded the bewildered red-headed wizard beside her. Without waiting for his reply, she tucked her wand into the back pocket of her jeans and ran out from behind the makeshift fort consisting of an overturned carriage. Every one of her senses was muted, their energy diverted to her movement as she ran toward the pleading voice. She wouldn't remember until later the wreckage on either side of her path, nor the shouts and grazing of curses around her.

She now saw why the voice had been hard to follow—its owner had suffered a deep gash in his neck, mere inches from his windpipe. When he saw Hermione, he grabbed her wrist tightly and rasped, “Please help me! I—didn't—see them—coming.”

She made what she hoped were soothing noises and ripped off part of the bottom of her shirt. Holding it to the wound, it soaked through almost immediately. She ripped off another piece of fabric, pressing it to the young man's neck. It too was completely bloodied in what seemed to be only a few moments. Blood, blood, so much blood! She looked around as though the shouts of pain from other wounded and the hateful cry of curses sailed past her could provide some helpful hint on how to save someone from dying. She felt pressure on her wrist and looked down.

His eyes met hers. He was afraid. She shook her head forcefully and applied more pressure to his neck, almost angrily encouraging him to stay with her. Later she would recall the dying intensity of his gray eyes as his soul departed. It was the memory of these eyes that would help her months later to locate his name and photograph in the Ministry archives of war casualties.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she noted shouts from the carriage. With a sort of numb detachment, she thought that she should be feeling more fear, but strangely all she felt was…cold. And all was dark.

Hermione suddenly jerked, inhaling water and spluttering as she looked wildly around. She came to by degrees, her eyes first falling on the soft peachy paint and then the slightly rusted window casement on the far wall. Slowly she realized that she had had that dream again, and that she wasn't on some battlefield but at home in her bath. Her shivering had less to do with the barely tolerable temperature of the water than with the memory of that day.

His name was Robert Henderson, he was twenty-one years old and a Magical Law Enforcement officer, he had sandy-blond hair and gray eyes, his wand was mahogany and unicorn hair. No family. That was all the archives had said. She recited it like a mantra like she had many times before.

She knew they would come next, but she still couldn't stop the sobs that escaped her. With a fleeting look at the bathroom door, she covered her mouth with her shaking hand and tried to suppress her weeping. Images of the young man's blood and gray eyes swam in her vision, taunting her. Even with everything that she had done, that she had learned, none of it was enough. She let him die. He was dead now because she couldn't save him. Because she had been weak and vulnerable. Absently, and almost to reaffirm this, her fingers traced the protrusion on her shoulder blade where the curse had hit her and further prevented her from continuing her ministrations on the fallen wizard.

“It's been almost three years, Hermione,” she repeated yet again, reminding herself of a broken record, but effectively breaking the spell of the dream. Shaking her head to diffuse the remaining images, she grabbed her towel from the rack to her right and stood up from the bath to dry off.

A few minutes later, clad in a thin cotton robe, she followed the billowing clouds of steam into the hall of her flat. Heading to her room, she passed Harry's open door on the right and gave a small wave to where his prone figure lay on the bed. He raised himself up and returned her greeting.

“Is the bathroom finally free?” he asked in a falsely exasperated tone. “I was about ready to call in a search and rescue party for you, Hermione, you were in there nearly an hour!”

That elicited a slight chuckle from her, but it sounded forced and died away quickly.

“Sorry,” Hermione apologized. “I fell asleep.”

It was a simple sentence that hung in the air for a moment while Harry's grin fell into a concerned frown. His voice softened slightly as he asked, “Was it your dream again?”

She nodded but didn't meet his eyes, instead staring at the space where the bedpost rested on the floor. This was the part of the dreaming she hated most—knowing how fragile it made her appear when she'd already worked so hard to seem strong and capable.

“You did everything you could, Hermione,” Harry assured her quietly.

As habit dictated, they remained a few paces apart. Neither made a move to close that space which represented more than just air and floor. For Hermione it was her last remaining shred of dignity, her chance to maintain some kind of composure. And for his part, Harry seemed to understand that.

She nodded and mumbled, “I know,” as if on auto-pilot. They'd been through this before.

Crossing the room in two strides, he met her at the door and somewhat hesitantly placed his hands on her arms. Almost involuntarily, she raised her head, surprised at the sudden deviation from the norm. His expression matched hers, as though he too was shocked by his own behavior.

Among the pell-mell of thoughts coursing through her brain, most predominant were those spurred by the sensation of heat emanating from Harry's touch. But she was coherent enough to register that Harry had begun speaking.

“Not many people would leave the safety of cover to plug the wound of a stranger. That alone makes you a better person than the rest of us,” he said sincerely. His words were serious and brooked no argument. Not that she had the energy to do so.

She smiled wanly. “When did you become so wise? Aren't I supposed to be the one worrying about you?”

His face broke out into a genuine grin. “I figured I'd be magnanimous and give you a break,” he said, adopting a pompous expression and putting his hands on his hips.

Hermione quirked an eyebrow. “Hanging out with Ernie lately or using Ron's Word of the Day toilet paper again?” she asked, laughing for the first time all day.

“Toilet paper,” Harry replied, crestfallen that he'd been found out. She laughed and playfully swatted his arm. Still chuckling, she turned to leave, but Harry stopped her. Her gaze briefly flitted from his firm grip on her arm to his furrowed brow. “Are you going to be all right?”

She regarded him for a moment and then smiled. “I will be. Thanks, Harry,” she replied sincerely, losing herself his green gaze. It was more of a promise to herself than him. Suddenly she realized that she was staring and tore her eyes away from his face, a faint blush creeping up her cheeks. She continued speaking, the words tumbling out in a rush and she tried to hurry her retreat. “I just think that if I could get past this, I'd be better at helping others do the same. How am I supposed to counsel people through their grief if I can't even deal with my own?”

Nodding to himself, Harry contemplated her question. “I reckon it's hard because everyone is different. I mean, you were fine until a year ago or so. You can't really compare yourself to others, Hermione,” he answered quietly.

“I wouldn't say that mentally blocking a traumatic event is `fine,' but I suppose you're right,” she said as though from a distance. “For once,” she added, coming back to herself and earning a phony pout from Harry. “There's no use prolonging the inevitable.”

She thanked him again and explained that she had to go get dressed. This was her last day in the two weeks' compulsory leave she had been forced into after the news of Charlotte, and she intended to make the most of it. To be honest, she hadn't wanted the time off but her boss who was nothing if not an even more frugal version of Ebenezer Scrooge, was not sympathetic to her many plights.

It was customary that the therapist of a dead patient be put on some administrative leave if the death was unnatural, and until now Hermione hadn't really considered that it might be as much of a punishment as a treatment. See that your patients don't die, it seemed to scream at her.

She hid her wince at the thought as she turned around and headed back to her room. When she reached the threshold she looked back at Harry and noticed the return of his concerned gaze. She tried to give him a reassuring nod, but was distracted by the screech of an owl as it flew into her room, a scroll attached to one of its legs.

Closing the door behind her, she cinched her robe tighter and hurried to untie the letter. Without even waiting to pay the bird, she immediately tore the seal on the parchment and unfolded the unexpected piece of post.

The script was of the official Ministry sort and she hastily skimmed the letter's contents, ignoring the insistent chirps of the post owl. She looked up when finished and stared at her bedcover dazedly. A particularly piercing cry and a rather sharp peck on her finger broke her reverie, and she quickly retrieved a few knuts from the coin jar from her desk.

Having finally received due payment, the delivery owl hopped to Hermione's windowsill and took off. She kept her eyes trained on the course of flight until it was far out of sight, frowning thoughtfully at the letter from her boss.

Crossing back to where she had dropped the letter in her haste to assuage the owl's screeching, she picked it back up and again studied the parchment more carefully.

Dear Healer Granger,

The following is in accordance with section 38.C.ii of the St. Mungo's Hopsital for Magical Maladies and Injuries Decree:

You are hereby placed on probationary status following your return to employment. This applies to any and all involvement with patients until the time designated by your head supervisor. Regular appointments are to be indefinitely postponed and your are prohibited from accepting new patients until your probation term has been completed.

Should you wish contest the material in this letter, please see Head Receptionist Christine Phillips within the next two week—although we advise against it, because the appeal process takes even longer than that. Good day.

Ministry Staff Member, Constance Briggs Constance Briggs Healer Ebenezer H. Powell, EbenezerH. Powell

Hermione looked up in shock. So what was the point of going back to work if she wouldn't be allowed to continue cases with her current clients? Again the feeling that the Ministry was in some way holding her responsible returned full force, leaving a bitter taste on her tongue. Slowly she sank onto her bed, allowing herself to finally consider those thoughts that she had been trying so diligently to banish.

Charlotte poisoned herself. Even Hermione had to admit that the physical evidence of this was overwhelming—Harry had said that they'd recovered Charlotte's fingerprints on the vial of poison, not to mention the eye-witness accounts. Though somewhere deep in her mind, Hermione was sure that it wasn't true. It was partly due to her influence that she had gotten Harry to convince the head of the Auror department that his team should at least investigate the case a little further, despite its being out of their jurisdiction.

Hermione mused on these things for moment until Harry's worried voice broke through her thoughts. After a few seconds of pseudo-eavesdropping, she surmised that he must be on a Floo call and was content to leave it at that when she accidentally overheard her own name.

Quietly, she crossed the room and squeezed open the door, wincing as it creaked loudly. She paused briefly but continued tip-toeing toward the living room when the conversation hadn't halted. The voices were much clearer in the hall, though she could tell Harry was making an effort to be quiet while he talked to his partner, Persephone.

“—nothing new. No leads at all,” Persephone was saying.

Hermione daringly peeked around the corner and noticed that Harry was pacing, wearing a pattern in the rug by the fireplace in which his partner's head was suspended in the flames.

He glanced at Persephone mid-stride and dropped his shoulders somewhat defeatedly, lowering his voice further. “Is there anything to go on?” he asked with the barest trace of hope.

In the hallway Hermione almost involuntarily leaned toward Persephone as she answered, her feelings of guilt for intentionally eavesdropping on her best friend's conversation momentarily forgotten.

“Well, it still looks like suicide if that's what you mean,” she replied indifferently.

Hermione supposed that Harry hadn't told his partner the real reasons why he was

pushing for an in depth investigation of what appeared to be a very clear-cut case. Again she fought down the guilt that accompanied the reminder that she was using her Ministry connections to further her own causes. There was no reason to assume this was anything other than a suicide, except for Hermione's intuition that Charlotte wouldn't have taken such a drastic measure—especially when she remembered their parting comments only a little more than two weeks before. It just didn't make sense that a woman so determined to only remember her husband with love instead of grief would go to that extreme.

Hermione's thoughts were going in such circles that she almost missed what

Persephone said next.

“Odd thing though,” said the Auror with a crinkled brow, “The witnesses are changing their testimony. Those who before claimed that they had not seen Mrs. Fairclough for the past week are now admitting that they'd seen her the night in question. It's strange, I've never seen anything like it. Of course, it may be nothing—most of them are quite old, but still. Some are even going as far as to say that they remembered hearing that Mrs. Fairclough went bankrupt and couldn't support herself any longer.”

Harry nodded his head pensively. “We'll look in on that, if the goblins will let us see Char—Mrs. Fairclough's financial records. In the meantime, have any of the witnesses testified to seeing any intruders that night? Or company of any kind?”

Persephone shook her head with a curious expression on her face. Hermione guessed that maybe the Auror was picking up on Harry's over-average emotional involvement in this particular case. Harry seemed not to notice Persephone's intense gaze, which immediately rearranged itself into a polite inquisitiveness when he ceased his pacing and turned to face her.

“Thanks, Persephone, that helps a lot,” he told her sincerely. She took her cue to leave and made her goodbyes, though Hermione suspected that Persephone's eyes had flitted over to where she was partially hidden in the hall. Hermione forgot to be worried that she'd been discovered, however, when she saw the sagging shoulders of her best friend as he leaned against the mantelpiece.

She was just about to announce her presence when he said quietly, “You can come out now, Hermione.”

Emerging somewhat ashamedly from the dimness of the hall into the well-lit living room, Hermione realized it was useless to act as though she hadn't been eavesdropping and opened her mouth to admit her espionage. Harry once again beat her to the punch.

“I know you were listening,” he stated calmly. He turned to face her and gave her worried expression a small smile. “I'm not mad,” he told her and she visibly relaxed. “I was going to tell you all of this anyway, so it was probably better that you hear Persephone's reports word for word.”

They didn't speak for a moment until Hermione said, “So do you think it's a coincidence that the witnesses are changing their stories?”

Harry glanced at her briefly before turning and resuming the pacing which Hermione considered to be the source of the faded path on the hearthrug. She seated herself comfortably on the couch, pulling one leg beneath her and discreetly rearranging her robe for modesty's sake.

With a deep breath, Harry tossed up his hands and conceded, “It could be. I can't think of why they would want to though. We've always checked out all of the neighbors and none of them have anything to gain by Charlotte's death. Sorry,” he said at Hermione's grimace.

She shrugged with forced unaffectedness. “Maybe they aren't changing them on purpose,” she suggested. Harry looked at her a little uncertainly. She continued uninterrupted, “It sounded to me like maybe they're just remembering things differently.”

Harry's eyes met her swiftly in wordless communication. “Memory charms?” he asked sharply. Anyone other than a Ministry-trained official placing memory charms was a serious offence, and one that might complicate matters.

Hermione shrugged again, feeling a little helpless even as her pulse raced with the thought that perhaps she had been right about Charlotte after all. “I'd have to look into it. I've never heard of a type of memory charm that was this complex—causing someone to completely forget something is one thing, but causing them to confuse exactly what they remember is something else altogether.”

Harry slumped next to her on the couch and she dimly noted that they were in almost the exact same positions as they were the night they had fallen asleep together. That night seemed to have been years ago after everything that had transpired in the past few weeks. Unconsciously it seemed, Harry shifted toward her and her pulse raced again, but for an entire different reason. She found that she had been holding her breath, and had to remind herself to breathe.

“Do you think you could look into that?” Harry asked her. She nodded and he continued, “It's just that the head of Auror department is breathing down my neck for continuing this investigation in the first place with so little evidence of foul play.”

He tilted his head from where it was resting on the back of the couch and Hemione felt him regarding her profile as her mind went back and forth from thinking about how close Harry's arm was to hers to the thought that there may have been some “foul play” if someone had gone through the trouble to obliviate potential witness. The present material evidence indicated that if it was indeed a suicide, there was no reason to suppose that it was premeditated.

She again thought about how lucky it was that she had a friend like Harry, who would take her on faith and even manipulate the head of his department so that the Ministry wouldn't close the investigation.

Turning to him with a soft smile, she met his anxious expression and said, “Thank you, Harry, for everything. I know this isn't exactly protocol for a case like this.”

Harry smiled just as softly, his gaze lingering somewhere just below her eyes. The moment was stretching on and on, and Hermione could feel her cheeks growing warmer, but she couldn't tear her eyes from his. And then she did what she would normally do to keep him from reading her expression—she threw her arms around him. Harry was so accustomed to her embracing him that he hardly spluttered at all as the air left his lungs. Over his shoulder, Hermione rolled her eyes at her behavior and then pulled back, surprised to see that Harry too was blushing.

They looked away from one another awkwardly and Hermione watched out of the corner of her eye as Harry became increasingly interested in the threading on his arm of the couch. Hermione cast about for something to alleviate the sudden tension in the room, but Harry beat her to it.

Clearing his throat, he asked in voice somewhat higher than usual, “So, I better head in to the office then.”

Hermione nodded mutely as he pushed himself off the couch and began to walk to his bedroom. She almost immediately missed the heat his body provided. Pulling a blanket off of the nearby ottoman and wrapping it around her shoulders, she allowed her thoughts to steer her in two directions.

What kind of memory charm could perform the kind of spellwork necessary to not erase, but repeatedly modify a person's memories?

Why was Harry blushing so vividly when we hugged? She smacked herself on the forehead for that one. It was obvious—the only thing between her naked body and his robes was a thing layer of cotton. And Harry was only a warm-blooded male. It would be silly for her think past that.

Would Charlotte really have given herself poison? She seemed so earnest about just exorcising her demons in regards to her husband's death. And she specifically stated that she wasn't eager to join him just yet!

I'm surprised Harry hasn't asked Persephone out. She's beautiful and, Harry says, good at what she does. Lovely brown hair that probably doesn't expand in volume exponentially when it's humid, and pretty blue eyes that brings out her pale complexion. And not even pale like my skin in the dead of winter, but the English rose sort of pale. I'm just surprised it's taken him this long is all.

But Charlotte was planning to continue sessions with me! I don't see why she would've, unless maybe she didn't, perhaps she was—NO, Hermione told herself firmly, not even noticing the tears that had begun coursing down her cheeks as she thought of her former client. She couldn't possibly have been murdered.

“Hermione!” shouted Harry from where he stood in the corner of her vision. She turned toward him abruptly only just noticing him and swiped at her cheeks with the backs of her hands.

“Sorry,” he apologized from where he stood in his Auror uniform, “I'd called you a couple of times,” he explained. He did not mention her tears, for which Hermione was grateful. The constant weeping during the past weeks, most of it in secret, was exhausting. Plus, see wasn't even sure why she couldn't recover from her grief—even right after war, she was able to focus enough on a goal to ease her pain a little.

That was it! The more distracted she was by other things, the less time she had to dwell on images of Charlotte feeding herself poison, or the light going out in a dying man's eyes….

“It's all right,” she said suddenly, shooting up from the couch and heading back to her bedroom. She stopped before she entered the hall and looked back at where Harry stood, nonplussed at her abrupt moodswing. “And Harry,” she said, a relieved smile playing at her lips, “I'll see what I can dig up on memory charms.”

He nodded and gave her a little salute before digging in the small pot by the fireplace for Floo powder. Harry looked back as if to say something, but Hermione had already vanished down the hall, her thoughts laden with ideas on where to look first.

My researching skills could do with a good dusting, she thought with some apprehension. Still, what better way to spend my last day off? It's the only holiday I've had in years…

An hour later she was preparing to Apparate to her first stop, the most expansive and encompassing collection of books in the UK—the Hogwarts library. And what's even better, she thought to herself with a fond smile as she pictured the Hogsmeade Apparition point, This time I don't need a teacher's note to look in the Restricted Section!

A/N: Psst, review!

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A/N: Sorry it took me so long to update this, but I doubt many of you were holding your breath. I have finals next week and then spring break, so I hope to write out a few more chapters during that time. Yay! I'm wondering why this story isn't attracting as many readers as my others…is it the title? Summary? Genre? No se.

Disclaimer: I think I've forgotten this on all of my other chapters, so here's an all-inclusive one—I don't own Harry Potter or anything of that shizzle.

Chapter 4: A Woman's Intuition

When the uncomfortable squeezing subsided and Hermione felt her ribcage expand and her organs slide back into their proper positions, she smoothed down the imaginary wrinkles in her robes and paused to let her eyes readjust to the sudden brightness. She allowed for a moment an unguarded grin to spread across her face as she gazed upon the masses of Sunday shoppers, paying her no mind as they bustled along past her in pursuit of Hogsmeade bargains.

She raised her face to bask in the unseasonably strong rays of sun as she set off toward the castle, throwing her cloak on over her shoulder in an effort to escape the heat. She retraced the path that she and her boys had taken time and time again, marveling at how little seemed to have changed. Even after the war, a voice in her head seemed to add, effectively wiping the smile from her face.

Inwardly she cursed herself for destroying a perfectly good moment with negative thinking, so she tried to focus on something besides that niggling voice in her head. Unfortunately, this brought up another uncomfortable fact: the more things she continued to add to her “must-avoid-thinking-about-this” list, the more they seemed to swoop down on her unannounced.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that running from problems wasn't a solution. She could probably even admit it consciously if she gave herself the chance. Next came the inevitable questioning of her profession—who was she to counsel people through their grief when hers was always pushed just out of sight? She hated feeling weak for allowing things that happened years ago to influence her present actions, and she hated even more the knowledge that emotions were not the root of weakness.

As she rounded the final corner on the path to her destination, she realized that even this moment was the product of her attempts to distract herself from those mingled feelings of guilt and confusion over Charlotte Fairclough's death. Her steps faltered, but she recovered—just as she told herself she would recover from her sorrow. Especially with good friends like Harry and Ron by her side.

It was this positive self-efficacy that seemed to tip her chin higher, as the many turrets and gleaming windows of Hogwarts castle came into view. Making the journey to Hogwarts on her own reminded her of the first time she beheld the glorious structure and what would become her home in the many years to come, and she couldn't help but fall in love with it all over again.

The castle represented much more than its cold stone exterior. Within its fortified walls she made the friendships that she knew would last a lifetime, enriched her mind with lessons and texts by some of the most talented wizards of their age, and finally answered the call her magic had made to her years before. It was a modification of the second constituent that brought her there today.

She paused for a moment near the beech tree by the lake, where she, Harry, and Ron had spent many a pleasant afternoon. Using her left hand to shield her eyes from the sun, she gazed up at Gryffindor tower, probably filled with milling students making use of a break between classes. She wondered absently if there was a girl up there with bushy hair huffing through the noise as she tried to focus on the page in front of her. Would that girl appreciate the friends and relationships she forged here? This, Hermione thought, was the most important lesson of all that Hogwarts imparted on its students.

A faint buzzing like insects brought her out of her reverie. With her hand still shading her eyes, she scanned the grassy area not too far from the tree and noticed a few packs of whispering students with their eyes cast in her direction. The cause of their staring eluded her for a split second and she fought the instinctive urge to check behind her before the matter of her fame crashed over her and she felt a faint blushing on her cheeks.

With her head held high she continued her journey to the library, not failing to notice that while some of the whispering students she passed regarded her somewhat coolly, no doubt unwisely taking the Prophet's article word for word, others had expressions of awe and admiration clearly evident on their faces. She offered a shy smile before she entered through the massive doors and veered off in the direction of the only room she had visited more often than the Great Hall and perhaps her own dormitory.

When she arrived at the doors of the library, some Ravenclaw students were kind enough to hold the door for her on their way out. Hermione smiled at them graciously as they retreated amid a rush of excited whispers and entered what she had once considered her inner sanctum. All at once the smell of dust and fresh parchment assaulted her senses and she paused a little to revel in the memories tied to those scents. She grinned a bit to herself, recalling only one other fragrance as disarming as books. Harry.

“Miss Granger, is that you?” came a shrill voice Hermione had only ever heard raised in scandalized tone or growled in suspicion. Adopting a mask of politeness, she turned and replied as sincerely as she could, “Oh, Madame Pince, how nice to see you again.”

The librarian shook her head as if gently scolding the former student. “Oh no, dearie, it's Filch now,” she said, waggling the fingers of her left hand. On the third was a somewhat tarnished though still beautiful wedding band.

Hermione swallowed her initial disgust with the idea of a Mr. and Mrs. Argus Filch, and managed a composed, “How lovely,” silently reminding herself in aggravation that she now owed Harry five galleons.

Madam Filch beamed with pleasure at the vague compliment, though it was still eerily vulture-like. Marriage seemed to have made her a more tolerable person, Hermione thought, unless this was the side she normally reserved for non-students. That abruptly changed, though, when Hermione mentioned her reason for visiting. The woman seemed to struggle with herself for a moment, but eventually relented when Hermione pointed out that Headmistress McGonagall had given her an open invitation to make use of the castle's many literary sources at her leisure.

So, some minutes later, Hermione was walled up being several piles of hopefully relevant texts deep in the Restricted Section. The area she occupied was dusty, as students rarely passed Madame Pinch-Filch's scrutiny of their proffered notes, but this did not bother her because she was already off in a world of her own, one she had frequented many times.

Hermione knew that the charm required to mutate memories within the minds of witnesses would not be found within the covers of The Standard Book of Spells. In fact, she had never heard of a memory charm behaving as though being constantly updated at all, unless it wasn't a charm. The thought struck her as odd, as though she might have thought of it before, but she scribbled a note to check potions texts as well anyway.

A low rumbling in her stomach alerted her to what she considered to be Ron's expertise: lunch. A small smile crossed her face as she noted the time on her wristwatch—it was just the hour to drop in on the person who was arguably her second favorite redhead—Ginny Weasley.

It was probably too much to hope for that Hogwarts' formidable librarian would allow Hermione to remove the books from the safe haven of the library, so she utilized a handy transcribing spell she had concocted during her search through the many Dark texts of Grimmauld Place and tucked away the resulting scrolls of parchment. It was true that she had little to go on, but the information she had accumulated was definitely intriguing. She waved a hearty goodbye to Madame Filch, who was somewhat relieved to see the back of her, and made her way to Ginny's office.

Several winding corridors and trick staircases later, Hermione vowed to resume her exercise regimen posthaste. She was still breathing in puffs when her confident knocks were answered with an absent “Come in.” She opened the heavy oak door to the sight of Ginny scribbling away on a piece of parchment in the center of her less-than-immaculate desk, occasionally blowing a stray strand of her long and silky straight ginger hair from her face. The petite witch eventually looked up and greeted, “Hermione!” while rounding her desk to give her visitor a kiss on the cheek.

Hermione felt a pang of guilt over such a warm welcome; the two hadn't kept in contact as well as they should have over the past few years. In fact, most of their correspondence took place through Ron, who was a convenient though ineffective messenger. Looking back, though, Hermione traced the beginning of their slight estrangement to her sixth year and subconsciously attributed it to the accompanying sense of inadequacy with regards to Harry. Try as she might, Hermione couldn't really help but connect Ginny with these negative feelings, which no doubt held a bearing on how diligently she attempted to maintain their friendship.

Pushing these thoughts aside, she plastered a smile on her face, which wasn't too difficult considering the infectious enthusiasm radiating off the younger witch. “Ginny, how have you been? Or should I say, `Professor Weasley?'”

“Oh, quiet, you,” she scolded jokingly, swatting her on the arm. “I can barely stand the students addressing me as `Professor,' let alone…” she trailed off, a little uncertainly, “my best friend,” she finally said.

There was an awkward moment of shuffling robes and shy glances to the floor before Ginny spoke up in a quiet but determined voice. “Hermione,” she asked, “what has happened to us?”

There was no doubt as to the meaning of her words, for Hermione had been thinking the exact same thought. However this did not assist her in composing an acceptable answer. Instead she settled for the truth. “I don't know, Gin. It has certainly been a while,” she offered by way of a conversation starter.

The young Charms professor wore a somewhat pained smile. It seemed that Hermione's unhappiness over the past few years was not entirely one-sided. She looked at the woman with whom she had formed her first meaningful female friendship and sighed internally, knowing that the one seemingly undefined wedge between them then was the reason she was having a tough time voicing her feelings now. There was no way Hermione could deny that the cause of the strain on her and Ginny's friendship was the same that had been the death toll for girls' friendships regardless of time or space—a boy. More specifically, Harry.

Suddenly it all seemed so petty, so juvenile. So what if Harry and Ginny dated for a while? They were broken up now, right? What good did it do to dwell on the memory of the pair of them when it ended so long ago? What good was it to recreate just how badly her stomach churned and her heart bled at the sight of them, even as she beamed pleasantly to the world? The truth was, Hermione had outgrown all that long ago. More pressing matters had vied for space in her consciousness and she'd had little choice but to oblige and accommodate them. Like making sure Harry survived his little encounter with Voldemort.

It might have been the way Ginny's glistening red locks were styled in a neat upsweep reminiscent of a French twist but Hermione began to think back to the beginning of the end—Bill and Fleur's wedding day.

It had been sunny but mild for three consecutive days before the wedding, something Mrs. Weasley considered a good omen and Fleur somewhat begrudgingly admitted was up to her sophisticated taste. Hermione hadn't seen Harry or Ron all morning but she hoped they were having a better time than she was, helping the bridesmaids get ready. This of course wasn't her job, as technically she was merely a guest at the wedding, but she preferred even the torture of primping Ginny and Gabrielle to inactivity.

The bridesmaids' dresses alone were a testament to patience. Initially Fleur decided she wanted to dress the girls in pink satin, but the idea was stamped on because of its horrible clash with Ginny's red hair. Next came pale gold until Fleur discovered the wonder of emerald green, which Ginny (and Hermione, albeit secretly) loved. However, Mrs. Weasley pointed out that such a rich color green was inappropriate for a summer wedding. Then Fleur opted for a softer green, but Gabrielle claimed that it washed out her complexion and the choice was discarded. Fleur's indecision persisted until about a week before the wedding, so that Ginny, Gabrielle and Hermione spent every waking minute dyeing fabrics until the evening before.

The dawn of Bill and Fleur's wedding day promised to be fair indeed. All morning Hermione watched as Ginny, Fleur, and Gabrielle—by no means unattractive on an ordinary day—transform themselves miraculously into complete knockouts. Hermione would never have guessed that Ginny Weasley did not have a drop of vela blood in her veins. Standing beside the three of them—Fleur in her flowing Duchess satin gown beset with tiny white pearls, her head topped with the Weasley's goblin-made tiara; and Ginny and Gabrielle in the most flattering cuts of the color that Fleur had ultimately decided on, pale gold—Hermione felt the effects of her plainness more acutely.

She stood in front of the mirror beside Ginny as her subconscious ruthlessly compared their reflections and noticed that Ginny's bright blue eyes were studying her with a calculating air.

“What?” she asked, self-consciously running her hand through her rather voluminous brown hair.

“Let me do your hair,” Ginny commanded more than requested.

Hermione backed away from the mirror so that her image appeared diminished in its pale yellow dress robes next to the beauty of Ginny. The floaty material billowed around her before settling down innocently at her sides. “I don't know, Ginny,” Hermione said uncertainly. “I mean, it's such a bother.”

Ginny clicked her tongue impatiently, turning to face Hermione with a determined expression on her face. “Don't be silly, it won't take long.” She walked to the vanity table where dozens of magical cosmetics and hair potions were scattered and began rummaging through them. “Now where did I put that Sleekeasy's?” she muttered distractedly.

Pulling her wand from a conveniently sewn loop in her robes, Hermione wordlessly summoned the bottle and placed it in the younger witch's hand.

“Go ahead,” Hermione said, pressing the bottle firmly, “I know you won't leave me alone until you get your way.”

She smiled a bit to take the sting out of her words, but the truth was that things had not been the same between the two girls once Ginny had started dating Harry. It was much different than when Harry dated Cho, Hermione had realized, especially since she had never had to witness any evidence of their courtship firsthand. At first Hermione had told herself that she was simply thrown off by the new friendship dynamic between her, Harry, and Ron, what with Harry off with Ginny so often and her and Ron's complicated history. Gradually she started to realize that the nauseated feeling in the pit of her stomach was not due to substandard food (how dare she ever fault the Hogwarts house elves, bless them) or upcoming exams, but seemed to linger on days that Harry's Quidditch practices ran late or when his and Ginny's trips around the lake stretched for hours. Maybe it wasn't really concern that her good friend was not getting enough study time for her O.W.L.s. Maybe it was something deeper, something she almost let slip the night he left with Dumbledore.

Maybe she was in love Harry.

Her immediate instinct was to laugh it off—she had been doing that for years, right? Denying any romantic attachment to her raven-haired best friend came almost as naturally as breathing. And she had gotten quite good at it. So when the thought came that perhaps she had a little more emotionally invested in her friendship with Harry than was prudent, it made sense to simply cast it aside.

Though even a nearly eighteen-year-old Hermione could not evade the idea forever. The night before Dumbledore's funeral, when her hopes seemed to be fading, she finally allowed herself to think of it. All of it. Those that were lost, how quickly life had forced her friends into adults, how, despite this, her best friends were still good and kind-hearted, how silly jealousies might have ruined it all. Emotions were dangerously powerful, she admitted truly for the first time. And lastly, her thoughts lingered on Harry and began to wade through the uncharted waters of her feelings for him. She winced at the cliché, but felt that it was appropriate.

When she finally did acknowledge that she had passed that point of no return, there were no alarm bells ringing, no sudden wave of understanding of the world. Instead it felt as though with a click every one of her thoughts and deeds from her entire life seemed to have readied her for that moment. It was powerful, sure, but it was also terrifying.

So what was stopping her bursting into the boy's dormitory right then and confessing from behind the curtains of his four-poster? The same person who was stubbornly smoothing dollops of Sleekeasy's through her even more stubborn hair at the moment, the only female she had ever allowed herself to open up to.

“All finished!” she announced triumphantly. Fleur and Gabrielle ceased their conversation held in rapid French and turned to where Hermione stood facing away from the mirror, staring at her in disbelief.

“What?” she asked, repeating her action from earlier, except instead of becoming tangled in curly masses, her fingers ran easily through silky tresses. Reluctantly she turned at gazed at her reflection.

Her jaw dropped. Granted it wasn't the same sort of transformation that she had undergone years before for the Yule Ball, but never before had she ever looked like, felt like, a woman.

“Ginny, what did you do to `er?” gasped Fleur in flattering incredulity, her accent almost untraceable.

“Nothing, I just…” she pretended to study the bottle with screwed up eyes, “What's in this?” she joked and the four witches laughed.

A knock abruptly silenced them as they slipped back into wedding mode.

“Who is it?” demanded the bride, rising to her full height.

“It's, er, Harry,” came a deep muffled voice from the other side of Ginny's bedroom door. “It's important.”

The four witches all looked at each in uncertainty, trying to deduce whether or not it would be breaking some cardinal wedding rule is they let him in. Almost as a unit, they shrugged at one another and Fleur beckoned Harry to enter.

He shut the door behind him and cleared his throat awkwardly. “I just wanted to talk to…” his voice faded away as he locked eyes with a certain redhead. “Ginny,” he squeaked before clearing his throat again. “Ginny, you look…amazing.”

She beamed at the compliment and Hermione noted with some considerable envy that her eyes never left Harry's. “Thank you,” she breathed.

Fleur and Gabrielle shared a smile and moved away to resume their previous conversation. Hermione shifted her weight between her feet, her heart plummeting into somewhere in the vicinity of her left shin. Tearing herself from the lover's burning gaze, she moved to follow the other two on the pretext of fluffing Fleur's train.

Of course a hair potion was not enough to change everything. It was just like fourth year all over again—Harry didn't say a word about how she looked. How the pale yellow of her robes brought out the blond highlights in her now sleeky straight hair. How even the idea of love and happiness in the time of war brought a radiance to her face? How even a new dress and hairstyle would not change the fact that she would never willingly leave his side?

Suddenly Harry's voice cut through her thoughts. “Actually, I'm here to talk to Hermione,” he explained. Fleur and Gabrielle raised their eyebrows at each other and glanced at Ginny, whose eyes had narrowed slightly at Harry's statement, and then at Hermione, whose mouth was flapping soundlessly like a fish out of water.

Hermione felt Ginny's eyes follow her as Harry steered her by the arm to a far corner in the room. Now that she was so close, Hermione noticed that his hands were somewhat clammy. Without thinking how it might look, she gripped one of his hands in both of hers and asked concernedly, “Harry, are you all right?”

He brought his eyes up to hers and for a moment she glimpsed just how he must be feeling—glad that there were still such joyous things in the world and scared to death that if he screwed up there would be nothing like it to come back to. He closed his eyes, effectively shutting down her analysis, and when he opened them again all she sensed was a renewed determination.

“I'm fine,” he said firmly, glancing to where the other three women made a show of busying themselves. He brought his head closer to hers and she shivered at how his breath stirred the little hairs near her ear. She ignored the sharp look that Ginny threw in her direction. “This is about the—” he checked himself again, bringing his head still closer, “horcruxes.”

A breath of, relief was it? escaped her, causing Harry to pull back and peer at her anxiously. She didn't know what she had expected him to say—certainly not anything personal in front of so many people, his girlfriend included.

He continued undeterred, “I need to talk to you—and Ron. After the wedding. I've had an idea.” He said all this very fast and before she could do more than nod he was heading for the door. His steps faltered at five feet away and he walked quickly back to her side. He was silent for a moment and Hermione, thinking that he had needed some affirmation on their meeting later, opened her mouth to speak when he beat her to it.

“You look nice in yellow,” he said simply, as though it meant nothing more to her than a platonic observation. And with that, he was gone and part of her was gone with him.

“Hermione?” came Ginny's voice as though from far away.

She shook her head and refocused on the redhead in front of her. “Yeah, sorry, Gin,” said replied, unconsciously calling her old friend by her nickname, “I was off somewhere else I think.”

The younger witch cracked a smile. “Luna would say that you were off visiting the snocackle fairies or something.” They were silent for a moment, playfully abusing the quirks of their mutual friend and Ron for marrying her. “So what brings you to Hogwarts?” she asked, offering a winged armchair for Hermione to sit in by her desk. She took the other, folding her legs under her in a childlike way that contradicted her professorial robes and stature.

Hermione seated herself, crossing her legs primly before replying, “Oh you know, usual reason. I needed the Restricted Section in the library.”

Ginny smirked and leaned forward conspiratorially. “Seems we might have missed out on the latest nuptials, huh?” she said with a wink.

Hermione let out a laugh that rang throughout Ginny's tiny office. “Tell me about it, I can't believe! Well, I've definitely lost the bet to Harry then!”

Ginny's smile twitched slightly at the mention of Harry's name.

“I'm sorry,” Hermione found herself saying before she could stop herself.

She held up a hand to stop. “No, Hermione, let's get this thing straight, whatever it is that we've been pretending to ignore all this time.”

Hermione matched the blue gaze steadily before her expression softened. “I'd like to act like I don't now what you meant by that, but I can't. I just don't know how to put it into words.”

Ginny grinned with an affected smugness. “Imagine, Hermione Granger made speechless.” She quirked an eyebrow at Hermione's reluctant smile. “But as for the words, I believe one will be sufficient,” she prompted.

“Harry.”

There it was, out in the open. Neither witch was quite brave enough to venture further just yet. Ginny spoke first in a small, brittle voice. “After the war, I think a lot of people thought things would just sort of pick up where they left off,” she began slowly. “But so many were lost, there was no way that those who remained would be the same. I thought that maybe everything would be neat and simple and wrapped in a nice little bow.”

“But it wasn't,” Hermione said sympathetically. She had thought the same thing when it was over. Harry would have Ginny and she would have Ron, and the world would go on spinning with one big happy Weasley family on it.

“No, it wasn't. Everything was different. It just…didn't work. Harry was different. Hell, I was different. But I knew there was one thing that would never change.” Ginny sounded exhausted, but maybe it was just the weight of carrying the burden of truth of three years.

“What?” Hermione asked, her interest piqued.

Ginny looked incredulously at her, as though seeing her for the first time. “You, Hermione,” she said patiently. Hermione gaped at her as she continued, “Well, your love for Harry anyway. I knew that even if black became white and up became down, you would always be there for each other. It made it easier for me to walk away.”

Hermione gasped at the revelation that she had inadvertently played a part in Harry and Ginny's break-up. “So that's why—Harry never said—we all thought—Oh, Ginny…” she spluttered helplessly, holding her hand to her mouth.

The redhead leaned back in her chair and laughed at Hermione's expression of mingled surprise and guilt. “Don't feel bad, Hermione, I honestly feel a lot better about letting all of this out.” She paused a moment. “Say, this wasn't a big scam to make spill my guts to you just because you're a shrink is it?” she joked.

“Counselor,” corrected Hermione automatically and they both dissolved into giggles as the years stripped away. “I am sorry though, Gin. I never meant to come between you two. I just wanted him to be happy, even if it wasn't with me,” she said, suddenly serious.

Ginny reached over and grabbed Hermione's hand. “It's all right,” she reassured her. “I think that maybe it was supposed to turn out this way. Besides,” she grinned, “I might not be dating superhunk and current Herbology professor, Neville Longbottom otherwise.” She chuckled at the reemergence of Hermione's utterly shocked face.

Her smile faded slightly. “Just tell me one thing, Hermione. Tell me that all of this wasn't in vain,” she said pleadingly.

“I love him,” was all that assurance Ginny needed. “So much that it physically aches and I want to shriek it at the most mundane times—like when he writes me stupid messages on the fogged bathroom mirror after he's taken a shower, or when he tries to work vocabulary from your brother's toilet paper in his everyday dialogue, or—” she cut off abruptly, remembering who she was talking to.

They might have just cleared the air, but it was only the first step to recovering their weakened friendship. Ginny seemed to be thinking along the same lines. She looked at the girl that she had once shards whispered conversations about boys and school at the Burrow with tears in her blue eyes and declared, “We should have had this conversation years ago.” Hermione nodded fervently, her own tears running down her cheeks.

Ginny sniffled and wiped her face with the back of her hand, letting out something between a chuckle and a sob. “We're so stupid, Hermione!” she laughed.

The brunette jumped up from her chair and hugged Ginny tightly, silently glad that she had obeyed the urge to visit the Charms professor's office.

Some time and many refreshing charms later (luckily Hermione was accompanied by one of Britain's best charmers—with a wand of course, Harry was by far the most naturally charming in Hermione's opinion) the pair decided to take a later lunch in Hogsmeade.

Ginny bit heartily into a ham and cheese sandwich. “Does Harry know?” she asked as though continuing an uninterrupted conversation.

Hermione's wrinkled nose (was talking with your mouth full a Weasley trait are was she just the most unfortunate diner in the pub?) was replaced by one of polite curiosity.

“Does Harry know that you're in love with him?” she clarified innocently enough, hiding her smirk as Hermione sprayed butterbeer all over the tabletop.

“Ginny! Why did you have to wait until I'd taken a sip before you asked?” she cried indignantly.

Her smirk grew wider. “Sorry,” she said, looking nothing of the sort. “What's stopping you?” she asked curiously, using her wand to help clear up evidence of Hermione's outburst.

Hermione paused with her napkin in mid-wipe, pondering the best answer to give. “It was never the right time,” she started, but, seeing Ginny's skeptical arched eyebrow, changed her mind and decided not beat around the bush. “Look, we both know he doesn't feel the same. Not saying anything just seems…easier than throwing away a perfectly good—no, the best friendship of my life.”

Ginny's eyes filled with sympathy. “But it's not the right thing to do, Hermione,” she said. “Haven't you seen the way Harry looks at you?”

“He looks at me like a friend, Gin,” she replied, becoming slightly incensed at laying bare all of her insecurities at once.

“Maybe so,” Ginny allowed, though she didn't look convinced. Hermione thought that maybe she was tackling a few of her own insecurities. “But the most important friend.”

Hermione smiled, touched. “Thanks.”

“You're welcome,” Ginny said matter-of-factly. “But seriously Hermione, you have to tell him. You guys are so close and have gone through so many things together that nothing could ruin your friendship now.”

The counselor shrugged, considering it only half-heartedly. Ginny watched her concernedly.

“Either that or you can always just spill the beans when you're drunk and it if doesn't work out at least you have something to blame it on,” Ginny suggested.

Hermione choked yet again on her butterbeer and repeated an upset, “Ginny!”

The younger witch once again assisted her friend in sopping up the liquid.

“Besides, I already thought of that,” Hermione said quietly, causing Ginny to positively howl with laughter.

When Hermione waved goodbye to Ginny, the sun was just dipping behind the mountains. She promised to visit more often and Ginny joked that perhaps by next time she and Harry would be double dating with her and Neville. Hermione was a little ruffled under the pressure, but was glad for the vote of confidence. Perhaps a drunken confession had its merits.

Exhausted from the brief spurt of exercise, Hermione collapsed on the couch immediately after arriving in her and Harry's flat. A few minutes later, she jumped in her seat as Harry Apparated less than ten felt away and fell onto the cushion beside her.

“Rough day?” Hermione asked, stifling a yawn.

“The worst. Doyle's breathing on my back about this continued investigation thing. Apparently he doesn't think it's necessary,” Harry replied, rolling his eyes.

Hermione chuckled as she pinched the bridge of her nose. The day had really taken a lot out of her, emotionally and physically. “Tell me how you really feel. Doyle? Which one is he again?”

“The weird one,” Harry answered.

Now it was Hermione's turn to roll her eyes. “Gee, thanks Harry, you really cleared things up,” she said sarcastically, swatting the only part of him that she could reach—his forearm.

Harry shrugged. “What? I don't really know that much about him. Suspicious bloke though, sometimes his ability to think like a Dark wizard is a bit frightening.”

She tilted her head toward him on the back of the couch sharply. “And he doesn't think there's anything odd about Charlotte's death?” she asked with interest.

He seemed to consider this for a moment. “Well, not really, but he did go with Persephone all those times to question the witnesses.”

“Hmmm…” she let her head fall back to study the cracks in the ceiling.

Harry sat up and regarded her inquisitively. “What are you thinking?”

She bit her bottom lip, a habit she's begun years before, indicating that she was deep in thought. Shrugging, she replied, “I think that I'm tired.”

He chuckled lightly and got up to stretch his arms above his head. Hermione contented herself to appreciating his lithe form inconspicuously out of the corner of her eye, though she accepted his proffered hand to help her from the couch. She suppressed the thought of pulling him back down with her and snogging the daylights out of him, though she doubted that even Harry would require that direct of an approach. Daft git.

A few minutes later, Hermione and Harry stood side by side in the bathroom brushing their teeth. It often amused Hermione to see the marveling expression on Harry's face as he observed her dental regimen.

“Stop staring, Harry,” she jokingly admonished as she retrieved a new piece of floss.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, color rising in his cheeks. Hermione studied his reflection as he went about squeezing toothpaste onto the bristles. Suddenly he looked up and his eyes went to hers. “Caught you,” he whispered.

Her hands froze in the ministrations and her heart suddenly began to beat faster. “I reckon that you should have noticed that long ago,” she said, having finished flossing.

Harry's brow furrowed but he didn't reply and Hermione cursed herself for probably having said the wrong thing. It was too much if not too soon.

As if to reinforce her worry, Harry began a series of throat clearing, something he only did when he felt awkward. Now you've done it, Hermione, she scolded herself.

“Did you find anything out when you went to Hogwarts?” he asked to cover the silence.

Yes, I found out that I've been underestimating Ginny's intuitive skills, she thought. Outwardly she nodded and replied, “Yeah, some interesting stuff about memory charms in general, as well as some potions that affect memory recollection, but nothing with the sort of effects we're searching for. But I'll probably have to look over my notes again tomorrow.”

They finished up and headed out of the bathroom. Hermione lingered to stick her tongue out at her reflection before turning off the light. Tomorrow, she would be going back to work and back to the lions' den.

Author's Note: I actually wrote this chapter out by hand during spare moments I had while studying. I find that if I don't turn on my computer, I get a lot more done. Go figure. Also, there is more H/Hr to come. I hadn't originally planned on most of the stuff in this chapter—you'll notice it's quite light on actual plot—but this what came out. So there! By the way, I didn't proofread this at all, so if you spot what appear to be inconsistencies, PLEASE point them out to me! And of course, all of the spelling and grammatical errors are mine. I'll see you in a week or so, hopefully! And feel free to leave a review!

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A/N: Hello again, everyone. I would apologize for taking so long with this chapter, but I doubt any of you want to hear my excuses. I have re-organized this fic and made a proper outline that will no doubt help me in the writing the rest. However, as I write I do go off on unplanned tangents that considerably lengthen the chapter past its estimated conventions. Blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I hope that you enjoy chapter 5 and thanks to all of you that have reviewed so far!

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all his little friends= not mine.

Chapter 5~ Dream a Dream

She struggled violently against the envelope of blackness, the inky tendrils that wrapped tightly around her ankles, pulling her back down, down. Her body was sinking back into that abyss of memory, weighted down as though her wings were sodden with wetness and fusing to her skin. Matted chunks of hair flew into her face even as her voice was forced through constricted vocal chords to cry at her own unseen demons. And all the while, the still, stale air pushed from all directions without quite filling her lungs so that her protests were muffled in panicked gasps.

Without even looking beneath her, she knew what—or who—was there. Dull gray eyes, glinting like hard stone, glaring at her malevolently. These were not the eyes of the victim to who she had pledged to save, but a poor imitation, mutilated by her subconscious into an angry and vengeful spirit. Even in her sleep, her mind was acutely sharp and comparatively more inclined to torture her. This much she knew, but that did not enable her to wake up.

She shielded herself but the eyes were everywhere and all-seeing, just as accusatory as they had been in every nightmare since Robert's death. She wondered when exactly she had slipped so comfortably into the use of his Christian name as though he was an old acquaintance from her childhood or a mutual friend of Harry or Ron. Except that she took great care never to mention him by name, not to anyone, and most particularly not to Harry or Ron, for Harry would purse his lips and furrow his eyebrows in that pitying way and Ron would shuffle about uncomfortably and attempt to change the subject. Thus Robert became a specter often visited in nightmares like this one—or perhaps not like this one, Hermione thought as the images around her began to blur and change color.

Where once was gray was now a fiery red, splashed in great brushstrokes against the black curtains that seemed to surround her on all sides. The scene morphed into a replica of her Ministry office, complete with the mahogany desk and a merrily cracking charmed fire in the grate. Movement from the doorway drew her attention and, not unlike as in a pensieve, Hermione witnessed her dream's projection of herself and Charlotte seemingly in the midst of parting. Only this time, the chagrined Hermione noted, Charlotte's stooped body was raked in a sobbing fit as Hermione's dream self patted her shoulder awkwardly and thrust tissue after tissue into the poor woman's fists.

That's not how it happened, thought Hermione confusedly, even as a creeping doubt settled over her mind's recollection of the interview. Perhaps Charlotte had been quite emotional, and understandably so after probably breaking the silence of the details behind her husband's death after so many years. It was like a dam that, once the water broke through in a slow trickle, the pressure built up and it became harder and harder to stem the flow. Had it been like that for Charlotte, Hermione wondered as the scene ended and repeated like the wizarding photographs on her simulated mantel, only each time appeared more and more tragic. Hermione was held captivated by what she believed was obviously the way the appointment had really gone—why had she recalled it in such a positive light when clearly the woman she shut the door on was wasting away wretchedly after the death of her husband?

Maybe she did not always have all the answers. She had been wrong about a lot of things in her life—her feelings for Ron, Malfoy's involvement with the Death Eaters in her sixth year—was Charlotte's true state of mind just one of them? Was this the purpose of her dream then, to help her recognize this? The questions each contributed a leaden weight to press her down, but strangely, she felt herself buoyed upward by some invisible force and she looked down to see her body rising and the forms of Charlotte and her dream self diminishing against the once again black backdrop of her subconscious.

Hermione's eyes opened to find shafts of broken moonlight entering through the slits of her drawn blinds and perfectly illuminating the concerned green gaze of her best friend. His face relaxed when she blinked sleepily at him and his hand went from where it had been resting on her forehead to smoothing away the strands of hair that had become plastered to her face with the perspiration of unpleasant dreaming.

She sighed softly and looked away to where to moonlight pooled near her bed. As much as she loved waking up to the sight of him, she would have much preferred different circumstances. “I'm sorry for waking you,” she whispered when the silence became unbearable.

His warm green eyes were still on her face though it was turned away. “You're just lucky I drank one too many butterbeers at dinner,” he replied.

Her amusement was expressed in a thin-lipped smile and a quick expulsion of air through her nose. Somehow, even when he was avoiding the real subject, he comforted her.

“What is the same one?” he prodded, shifting back against the bedpost. Hermione ignored the fact that her legs were tangled in the sheets and her duvet lay somewhere on the floor and settled back more comfortably into her pillows.

“It started out that way,” she answered, frowning at the tricks she managed on herself, “but then it was all different. It was Charlotte this time.” She looked up to find Harry nodding at her in that maddeningly pitying way she had grown to dislike so much over the years. In a slight huff, she continued, “But no matter. I've realized that maybe I was idealizing the situation a bit too much. She was a weepy woman when she met me and a weepy woman when she left me, a far cry from the pillar of strength I had been imagining. I only saw her once, that doesn't mean that I was suddenly an expert on all things Charlotte. And I wasn't her counselor yet, there was no relationship established. I shouldn't have supposed that I knew her so well—she probably did poison herself.”

She said all this very fast, anything to wipe that expression from his face. All too late she remembered his steadfast support in her request for an investigation even against the authority of his own Auror team, and she thought this was the reason why he blinked at her confusedly. Her hand flew up to her mouth and she breathed out a stuttered apology, “Oh Harry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to push you into anything! I was just upset about what happened and I guess I never thought to really look back on that morning because it was too painful.”

He seemed to accept this but his features were still arranged in a bemused frown. She felt his gaze rake over her shiny eyes from her impassioned tirade and her flushed cheeks from her following apology, and she felt the color in her face deepen even more. Silently, she blessed the thin beams of moonlight not for their reflection off Harry's roving eyes but the inability to permeate the shroud of darkness that protected her blushing face from proper scrutiny. Involuntarily her breathes came faster and she feared that her quickened heartbeat was loud enough for him to hear just how glad she was that he couldn't fully make out the features of her face.

She made a business of extricating her imprisoned legs and he hastily stood up to assist her, seemingly glad to hurry his goodnight she thought with a touch of hurt. When he threw on the duvet and pulled it snugly under her chin, she dared to ask the question that had been floating through her mind since the silence had descended.

“Will you stay with me, Harry?” she whispered. His hands froze where they had been smoothing the wrinkles of the material and she became aware of just how close his face was to hers. “Please, Harry,” she said even more quietly.

His body seemed to find its will again and he finished patting down the soft satin of her duvet before giving his answer in two simple words, “Anything, Hermione.”

She smiled and released a breath she had not known she was holding, watching him watch her as he rounded the bed, pulled back the blankets, and slipped in beside her. She hated how pathetic her request sounded, especially since it was to the one person she wanted to think she was strong and in control, not an emotional mess. But she was more worried, and strangely exhilarated by the utterly naked honesty with which her mouth had formed the words. At the back of her mind, she wished she had chosen something sexier to sleep in, not that this was a seduction ploy by any means.

They had never tread this far before, even in the war-torn days of Horcrux hunting, and it was frightening to see how close to toeing their invisible line of friendship they were getting. Her thoughts were stilled when Harry's hand emerged from underneath the blankets and grasped her own, his eyes never leaving hers.

She thought she would never get to sleep after that, but her eyes must have closed in slumber not long after, because the next time they opened, pale sunlight had replaced the gentle moonlit beams and her room was bathed in the warm morning glow. Reluctant to break the spell, she gingerly shifted position to face Harry, noting with a suppressed giggle that their hands were still joined.

A glance at her alarm clock indicated that she still had another three-quarters of an hour before she had to get up for her first day back at St. Mungo's. Just the thought of going back to work made her want to groan out loud, but luckily she held it in. Nothing was more beautiful to her than the sight of a real, flesh and blood slumbering Harry in the space that she would normally imagine him when she woke up on gorgeous mornings like this. Though his emerald eyes were hidden beneath heavy lids, she absorbed the rare sight of a Harry sans glasses and was awestruck at how the years seemed to fall away and an innocent and maybe even somewhat vulnerable Harry lay by her side. His raven hair was even more tousled than usual and the sight of them plucked at those hidden maternal instincts that made her want to lick her palms and push it flat. With her hand in mid-motion toward fulfilling this very fantasy, Hermione remembered herself and retracted her hand at once.

She found herself having to do that more often these past few weeks, having to hold back at just the last moment from hugging him too long or studying his face more closely or even just smiling a bit too widely. Perhaps it was due to her time off from work, but she reckoned the real reason was that she was slowly cracking. Years of pining away after Harry had done this to her, she thought, and eventually she would become as mental as Ron had always claimed.

It seemed that Hermione had reached a crossroads in her regard for Harry: either she could suck it up and admit her feelings and suffer the possible consequences or she could actually try to move on. But to continue on trying to simultaneously suppress her romantic attachment while carrying out her role of “loyal and dependable best friend” would be cheating herself out of the happiness she deserved. As she gazed at the plaster patterns in her ceiling and debated the matter so dear to her heart, she felt Harry stir next to her. It was when she looked over at her bed partner just as he yawned and rubbed his eyes that her decision was made for her. How could she give him up?

He blinked open those emerald green eyes that had so often been the centerpiece of many a nighttime fantasy and aimed them sleepily in her direction. She tensed up, anticipating the same grand entrance of awkwardness that had descended that morning so many weeks ago when she and Harry had awoken on the couch.

“Hello, Hermione,” he said pleasantly, as though waking up beside her wasn't at all unusual. Of course, once that thought was conjured, her heartbeat immediately quickened, though she was still awaiting the arrival of those awkward feelings.

She affected a cheeky grin and joked, “Why hello, Harry, fancy meeting you here.” A blush worked its way up her neck at the bold comment despite her sassy delivery, but she did not allow herself to look away. If she weren't mistaken, there seemed to also be a faint tinge of pink on Harry's cheeks as well—

“Did you sleep all right?” he asked, all business.

Hermione's grin faded and she rolled back to resume her study of the ceiling, as though by avoiding Harry's eyes she could also hide her shame for reverting to a blubbering child every time she had a nightmare. “I slept very well, thank you,” she said formally, tightening her arms around her sheets.

Harry's throat cleared once and then again. Hermione stifled a groan. Well you wanted awkward, Hermione. Congratulations, now you've got it. She turned to apologize for her ungrateful behavior and thank him properly for keeping her company, but he was already pushing back the sheets to get out of the bed. He almost to the door—she was distracted by the wayward wondering of when during the night that he had removed his shirt—when she stopped him.

“Harry, wait!” She wrestled from underneath her covers and met him where he stood shifting his weight uneasily between his feet. “I'm sorry, Harry. I have no right to speak to you that way when you've just…done what you did. You didn't have to stay with me, but you did. So thanks,” she said, trailing off lamely.

Harry shrugged in his characteristic way. “What are friends for?” he replied with the smallest hint of dejection. “Hermione listen, about what you said last night—”

“I know, it's just that…it's hard for me to let myself be seen in…vulnerable moments,” she continued earnestly, determined to explain her behavior no matter how much dignity it seemed to cost her.

To her relief, Harry did not look on her in sympathy but she could see in his eyes that he understood her jumbled explanation. He chuckled and said, “I think I've been guilty of that once or twice,” causing her to break out in a grin. “You don't have to apologize for that, Hermione. You were there for me when I was clinging to my Mr. Repressed Emotions persona after the war, now I get to be there for you. It's just what we do.”

Hermione blinked back the tears that were accumulating. “I just wanted to thank you properly anyway,” she said, her voice made scratchy by the sudden emotion.

Harry gave his modest half-smile and whispered, “You're welcome, see you at breakfast,” before kissing her forehead softly and leaving her to get dressed in privacy. She wandered aimlessly across the room toward her closet, catching the goofy grin she was wearing in the mirror above her dresser and wondering when Harry had become such a physically affectionate person.

Her mind was still thus occupied ten minutes later, after she had buttoned herself in a tasteful blouse and skirt and donned her stockings and plain black flats. As far as she was concerned, Hermione was the only woman that Harry treated so openly, which warmed her heart considerably and sent a lovely blush up her cheeks, but she conceded that she was one of the only women in his close acquaintance. A nasty voice in her subconscious pointed out that over a decade of friendship was bound to make even the most emotionally repressed persona capable of brief human contact; it didn't meant that Harry had any romantic intentions toward her. He probably didn't even realize he was doing it, she thought, the goofy grin now gone from her face.

Ruthlessly she combed her bushy locks into submission and secured them tightly in a practical knot at the base of her neck. With one last glance in the mirror, Hermione sighed, grabbed her briefcase for the first time in weeks and headed down the hall for breakfast. Her steps slowed slightly when she caught her name being used by one of the male voices in the kitchen. Pausing just around the corner, she listened intently to the whispered conversation that seemed to be about her, and banished the scolding voice in her head—that sounded suspiciously like her mother's—reminding her of all the eavesdropping she'd been up to as of late.

“—sure doesn't sound like Hermione, mate,” came the familiar voice of Ron. “I mean, her skills in that department are a little scary. Need I remind you of the pork pie incident? I'm still living down the shame.”

Hermione furrowed her brow in confusion. What were they talking about? Her musings were cut short by Harry's hasty reply.

“No! Ron, please, I think I'm set for life on that one. I'm just saying it seems a little out of character for her to be changing her mind about something important like this so…extremely.”

Ron snorted. “A woman that changes her mind suddenly? Someone alert the Prophet!” he said sarcastically.

Hermione could almost see Harry rolling his eyes, but she still had no idea what Harry was getting at. She was about to make her presence known when Harry made his reply.

“I'm telling you, Ron, it's strange. She doesn't even seem to remember how intent she was on proving Charlotte unlikely to commit suicide. Now she's saying the woman was weak and practically on the verge of collapse!” Harry exclaimed, his voice still an intense whisper.

There was a pause while Ron seemed to be considering Harry's earnest claim. Finally he said, his tone even softer so that Hermione had to turn her head to hear him, “Now that you mention it, with the way you made that woman Charlotte sound when Hermione first met her, it does seem off that Hermione would suddenly think otherwise. But I think maybe you and Hermione have been living together too long—it's usually her that reads too much into everything, which it seems to me, exactly what you're doing.”

Hermione could take no more listening in on a discussion that centered on her but made no sense to her whatsoever. She was fine, in excellent health (or at least in a state that nothing but a bit of exercise could improve further), and she was finally admitting to herself that her so-called faith in Charlotte Fairclough was unfounded—it was high time to stop deluding herself. She decided to consider the matter fully later and in the meantime, prepare for her grand return to work. She back-tracked a few steps toward her bedroom and exaggerated the volume of her walking on her re-approach to the kitchen. She could detect the sound of Harry and Ron both clearing their throats and one set of footsteps moving away from the table.

Rounding the corner, she gave a false start at the sight of her ginger-haired best friend. “Ron!” she exclaimed, putting a hand to her chest, “What brings you to our humble abode at such a wee hour?”

While Harry came over from the stove and distributed bacon on Hermione and Ron's empty plates, Ron explained that not only had the WWW's polyjuice cloaks been optioned for early release by several European and Asian wizarding sponsors, but that in honor of the occasion he was going to treat his two best friends to dinner.

“Congratulations, Ron!” commended Harry and Hermione in unison as Harry clapped Ron loudly on the back. Briefly Hermione and Harry made eye contact before Hermione looked away, Harry's mysterious concerns about her echoing in her mind.

“Thanks,” said Ron in a choking voice. “I also thought that I'd drop the bother of you off at work, seeing as it's your first day back, Hermione.”

Hermione raised her eyebrows. “Wow Ron, that's rather thoughtful of you, as long as I don't end getting killed in that deathtrap of yours,” she said, only sort of joking.

Ron pretended to be offended. “Deathrap!? I'll have you know that The Canon was outfitted by the most skilled, er, mekanicks in Muggle London! Besides, anyone who can survive being Crookshanks' mistress without dying is certain to survive a short ride with me at the wheel.”

Harry was choking back his laughter at Ron's outburst, but Hermione was busy schooling her facial features into a sharp look of reproach aimed at Ron for abusing the memory of her cat in that way. Soon she failed, her mouth breaking out into a grin as she admitted to herself that it was the things like Ron's ongoing feud with Crookshanks that kept him alive in her memory.

When the dishes were cleaned and, in Ron's case, fourth helpings of scrambled eggs were consumed, the trio headed out the door of the flat and down to where Ron had managed to squeeze his already miniscule car into a minute space right in front of the front door to the building.

“Now how's that for door to door service,” he said, puffing out his chest proudly as she and Harry rolled their eyes.

With Hermione and Harry safely ensconced in the passenger and backseat respectively, Ron gave the horn a hearty toot and asked in an affected posh accent, “Where to, miss?”

Hermione sighed, her good humor sapped by the thought of her destination and what she might find there. “To St. Mungo's, if you please,” she replied as she sagged into her seat.

Harry seemed to have picked up on her anxiety. “I'm sure it will be fine, Hermione.” He reached forward from the backseat to rub her shoulder reassuringly. She smiled softly to herself and patted his hand, grateful that Harry was her best friend first and foremost.

“Yeah, you'll knock `em dead,” said Ron jovially. It took a few moments for him to notice the glares his two friends were shooting at him. “What?” Another pause. “Oh,” he said, his entire hairline seemingly moving back with the realization. He smacked his forehead with his left hand. “Sorry, `Mione.”

Hermione sighed as she watched the pedestrians on their morning commute enjoying the unseasonably lovely sunshine. “It's fine, Ron. I just hope we never lose our senses of humor.”

Almost on cue, Harry and Ron burst out into laughter. “Listen to you!” Ron said, glancing over at her from the corner of his eye.

“I'm serious!” she exclaimed indignantly.

Still laughing in broken spurts, Harry said, “Hermione, if we haven't lost our sense of humor by now, I doubt we ever will.”

Hermione cracked a smile at her own expense and soon the car was filled with the sounds of laughter. Not too long later, Ron was pulling in to a parking stall in a shopping area near to the entrance to St. Mungo's. Hermione opened the door and stepped out, clicking the lever on her seat to move it forward so that Harry could take her seat. For a brief moment, she and Harry were standing alone on the curb out of Ron's sight.

She looked down the street at where St. Mungo's was hidden to the Muggle world. Harry saw her apprehension and whispered her some last words of encouragement. “You'll be great, Hermione, you'll see.”

“Thank you, Harry,” she replied just as quietly. They held eyes and Harry looked as though he was going to say something more when Ron interrupted.

“Oi, hurry it along, will you? Places to go, people to see!”

Hermione bent down to thank her driver despite his being a total prat, and laughed, “I feel like you lot are dropping me for the Hogwarts Express.”

“Does that mean I won't see you for another nine months?” he asked with a feigned hopefulness.

Hermione rolled her eyes and stepped away so that Harry could close his door. Through the open window he said, “Don't worry. I'll see you later on tonight.”

She nodded and watched the orange Mini drive away as she made her way through the entrance of St. Mungo's and down toward her office. If it's still there, she thought bitterly with the slightest bit of genuine fear.

She had just said good morning to Isabelle and was listening to the familiar clopping of her flats on the shiny wooden floor when she noticed that her footsteps weren't the only set she was hearing.

“Miss Granger!” came the loud bellow of Hermione's boss. She turned around, cursing the fact that if she had walked just a tad faster she could have missed this run-in completely. She waited the several moments it took for Ebenezer Powell's lumbering form to meet her and arranged her features into a polite greeting so as not to betray her impatience. He finally arrived, out of breath from the quickish pace. Mopping his shiny forehead with a pocket square, he panted, “Back from leave, I see.”

Hermione bit back her instinctive praise to his ability to state the obvious and nodded dutifully. “Back and ready to work, Mr. Powell,” she said, trying to gain some knowledge on what footing she was on with her employer. Unfortunately she could read nothing from his piggish watery gray eyes but detected from the lovely shade of purple he was turning that he was not entirely pleased. If his next words are `Now see here,' I'm done for, she thought morosely, plastering a sweet smile on her face.

“Now see here, Miss Granger,” Powell began as Hermione grumbled internally. “I trust you received the letter regarding your limited job duties for a short probationary period upon your return to employment.”

Hermione stuck up her chin defiantly. “I received the information you were so good as to send me, sir. However, I must contest the restriction on seeing the clients that I already have. If I may say so, sir, what is the use of bringing me back to work when I can't even keep my scheduled appointments?”

Powell's jaw flopped open and closed in shock; Hermione had never spoken so plainly to him before. Hermione's heart was beating double time but she was convinced that she was in the right. After all, how would she fill her days with no clients to see and no reports to make?

Finally Powell returned to himself. “The Ministry is not accustomed to negotiation in these matters, Miss Granger. That is to say, it is not proper to abandon protocol—”

“I'm not requesting that you `abandon protocol,' sir, I'm simply looking out for my clients' best interests, which, despite recent events, are still to keep their scheduled sessions with me.” She waited while Powell appeared to be considering her plight.

With a deep breath and a final stroke of his bushy moustache, he replied, “You support your case well, Miss Granger. Of course, as you know, there were some unfortunate circumstances in the past regarding that Fairclow woman, and we here do not hold you personally accountable. It is then my decision that you should resume your usual duties under the condition that you refer all new patients to another psychotherapist. Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Hermione responded with a true smile. She resisted the unprofessional urge to jump up and down and clap her hands and even managed to ignore her boss' mangling of Charlotte's name. Her happiness evaporated however when Powell continued.

“Unfortunately, as the events of Mrs. Faircloff's death are investigated, I have been ordered to seize all files and notes you possess making mention of your session with Mrs. Faircloo and her character,” he said in a rush.

Hermione was speechless. “Ordered? By whom? Excuse me sir, but this is not standard procedure in a case like this,” she spluttered, her confidence wavering having been caught off guard.

It was Powell's turn to tilt up his chin. “Under the orders of the Ministry of Magic, I must confiscate these files, Miss Granger. You had your negotiation, this is the payment. Do you want to see your patients or not? That privilege can easily be revoked,” he said, his bulky form bearing down on her.

She gasped at his implication. “Are you blackmailing me, Mr. Powell?” she asked in a dangerously low tone.

He immediately stepped back and the color of his face returned to normal. “No, Miss Granger, merely keeping you apprised of the developments of your practice. I will not have you bring down this department.” He dropped his tone to match hers and said, “And this time, not even your friends in high places can help you.”

All at once, Hermione realized that Powell knew about her involvement in the investigation of Charlotte Fairclough's death. Angrily she thrust her briefcase into the unsuspecting arms of her employer. “Fine,” she said, opening its latch and digging in its depths for the folders comprising Charlotte's information that her quill had committed to the parchment during the single session. Forcefully, she shut the case and ripped it from Powell's arms, replacing it with the now confiscated case files. “Fine,” she said again, and continued on her journey to office. Throwing open the door, she looked up to see that she wasn't alone.

A/N: This one was originally supposed to be twice as long, but I like to keep a consistent word count and this seemed the best place to cut it. But since I know exactly what the next chapter will hold, I don't think it will take too long to get it out to you all. Thanks for reading, if you want to let me know what you think in a review I would really appreciate it. Now I must go watch “Cash Cab” on the Discovery Channel!

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A/N: Hello, everyone. Well, looks like this will be the last chapter I post before I get back to school, but fortunately it's quite long! In fact, it's the longest I've ever written. Ever. So, I hope you enjoy it and massive thanks to my (regrettably few) reviewers—I really love you guys!

Disclaimer: Although there are more of my own character creations in this fic than not, I don't own Harry Potter or his friends.

Chapter 6~~Cheeky Vimto

“Mark!” Hermione gasped, putting one hand out to steady herself against the doorframe as the other clutched her chest. “What are you doing in here?” she asked, still breathless from both her encounter with Ebenezer Powell and the discovery of Mark Bonner sitting behind her desk, seemingly without a care in the world.

Mark removed his feet from where they were propped on the mahogany surface of Hermione's desk and reached her across the room in two large bounds just as she was hanging her cloak on back of her office door. He shifted his weight forward and backward as though he thought to hug her but wasn't sure if it was appropriate. He settled for an awkward pat on the shoulder and an enthusiastic “Welcome back, Hermione! How was your holiday? I must say, it was dreadfully dull without you around to brighten things up!”

The tension from her argument with her boss diminished with Mark's familiar friendliness. She found herself returning his infectious grin and answering quite cheerfully, “Thanks, it's good to be back, though I wouldn't necessarily call my time off from work a `holiday.'”

Mark smirked and seated himself in one of the armchairs by Hermione's faux fireplace—the very chair once occupied by Charlotte Fairclough. “That's right, because Hermione Granger never goes on holiday; that would ruin her image as a workaholic.”

Hermione plopped gracelessly into her usual chair, whipping out her wand to summon the pitcher of water and two glasses from the small table by her desk. She shook her head at her friend's audacious sarcasm and muttered a joking, “Cheeky.” With a sigh and a freshly filled water glass, she settled into her chair fully and banished the thoughts of all the work she should be doing. She waited until Mark had taken a large sip before admitting, “It did me a chance to get some housework done.”

After Mark's prompt spurt of water, his half-hearted scolding of Hermione, and the immature laughter that ensued, Hermione granted that Ginny did have a point in making humorous comments during others' drinking. She also wondered if perhaps Mark was really the man for her—after all, they had fun together, Mark was very charming and had the intellectual prowess to instigate and hold his own in intelligent conversation. It would be very easy to love Mark. But as she watched him nimbly cast the charm to dry up the hard to see water droplets, she realized that she and Mark were simply the perfect example of two rights making a wrong. There would never be a time when Harry was not the first person she thought of if she was in trouble or if she had good news; the first person she wanted to see in the morning and the last person she wanted to see at night.

It was just too bad that it would be supremely difficult bordering on impossible to convey this information to a man whose friendship was so important to her. And she wasn't sure if she meant Harry or Mark when she thought this.

“So anyway,” said Mark when he had sobered, “I came by to warn you that your boss has been snooping about a bit since you left and was particularly interested in some of your files on that woman who died, so you might want to be on your guard.”

Hermione blew out of puff of air disgustedly along with her good humor, leaping off her chair and pacing rapidly across the room and back. “Yes, I've already encountered that, unfortunately. And he actually took the files from me, though I'm not quite sure why since I've been told that I am not personally under investigation nor does there seem to be any prerogative to conduct one of Charlotte's death. I'm quite sure Harry will call it off anyway. It's horrible that there's no doctor-patient confidentiality in the wizarding world,” she said, almost without drawing breath. She continued pacing while Mark regarded her with an odd look on his face.

“What?” she asked defensively when she noticed him staring at her.

Mark looked confused. “I thought you said that your meeting with Charlotte went well?” he said uncertainly.

Hermione thought back to that day and how Charlotte was in tears for nearly the full hour. She shook her head at Mark, clearing the images and answering Mark's question. “No, I think you are mistaken. I remember her as an older, matronly woman, who talked only of missing her husband and how her life was empty without him. I was quite sad for her.”

Again Mark looked at her curiously. “Are you sure?” was all he said as he leaned forward in his chair. He nodded his head once when she answered in the affirmative and shrugged his shoulders in a “Whatever you say,” kind of way. He glanced at his watch absently, made a small oomph of dismay, and stood up suddenly. Within fifteen seconds he had grabbed his lime green Healers robe, explained that he was late and had to get to work, invited her to lunch and shut the door. For this first time since she had gotten dressed, Hermione was alone with her thoughts.

The past hour flashed back at her in brief chronological bits: Harry's parting words, her confrontation with Powell and the subsequent handing over of what should be privileged information, and Mark's eagerness to welcome her back. She naively wished for a way to please everyone, but she knew this to be realistically impossible.

“I will not have you bring down this department.”

Hermione could practically hear her boss' voice spitting the words at her as she sat at her desk. How dare he suggest that she act in a manner other than what was in the best interest of her clients, when the very idea of the department was hers to begin with! If I were older, or more credible as a department head, I would not be in this situation, she thought with irritation. Powell was using Hermione's professionalism and duty to her job against her, for his own gain. She doubted the Ministry had given any such order to collect evidence against his own employees. In fact, ever since the creation of her department in St. Mungo's, Hermione had never known there to be any such direct communication between the wizarding hospital and the Ministry. Could Powell be lying? she wondered, tapping the point of her quill on the desk blotter. But what could he gain with possession of Charlotte Fairclough's notes?

“And this time, not even your friends in high places can help you.”

There was no doubt in who he meant by that. Though many of her friends and other members of the Order gained considerable prestige after the war—hadn't even Mark gotten an Order of Merlin, Second Class?—Hermione was certain that despite his resemblance to a purple inflated gasbag, Ebenezer Powell was no thick-headed idiot, and that the only person he could possibly be referring to was none other than Harry Potter. But she could only guess at what Powell meant with this threat. Perhaps he knew that Hermione had played a large part, with her connection to Harry, in keeping the investigation into the circumstances of Charlotte's death going. But then why take the files? Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose; she could feel a headache coming on.

Her circulating thoughts were interrupted by a well-timed knock on the door. Squeezing out from behind her desk and smoothing the invisible wrinkles in her skirt, Hermione shuffled to the door curiously. When she opened it, she was surprised to see Isabelle's relieved face peeking back at her. Instantly, Hermione's face broke out in a grin as she beckoned her receptionist to enter the office.

“Thanks, but I can't stay long,” Isabelle said, accepting the invitation in her clipped American accent. “Glad to be back? I tell you, I had a helluva time reorganizing your appointment schedule. You're on for Adam Finnin at eleven o'clock, by the way. Yeah, and Powell just told me something about not scheduling any new patients?”

Hermione rolled her eyes at her boss' strange but petty antics. “Yes, since I am technically on probation, I'm not allowed to take on any new clients,” she explained, not bothering to withhold her bitterness at the situation.

Hesitantly, Isabelle placed her hand on Hermione's forearm and said quietly, “I was so sorry to hear about Mrs. Fairclough. I know you had only met with her once, but she was a very nice woman.”

“She was a very lovely woman, yes,” agreed Hermione in a small voice.

The silenced stretched between the two young women until with a sigh, Isabelle added, “Strong. Independent. Kind of like you, huh?”

Wrinkling her brow, Hermione took a step back. Isabelle's hand dropped back to her side and she looked embarrassed for her boldness. “What did you mean by that?” asked Hermione, surprised that anyone who had seen Charlotte after her session with Hermione could make that comparison.

Isabelle looked distinctly uncomfortable, as though she was a student being lectured by a teacher for speaking out of turn. She clutched and smoothed the front of her robes, constructing a reply. “Sorry, I didn't mean anything by it. She just reminded me of you sort of, the way she laughed at my stupid jokes and asked what State I was from and stuff. She told about the time she and her husband planned a daytrip from New York to South Carolina and hadn't known how long it would take. You English always think everything is so close together, but—”

Hermione put up a hand to halt her rambling friend. “No, what did you mean about her being strong and funny? She had just spent an hour crying practically in my arms! Couldn't you tell?”

Bewildered, cocked her head to the side and scrunched up her face in thought. “No,” she began uncertainly, “she seemed fine to me.” Isabelle paused and Hermione could feel her eyes studying her. Suddenly her expression cleared and she shrugged. “But hey, I only saw her for a few minutes, maybe she was just done crying by the time she got to me.”

Hermione shrugged too and smiled, though she wasn't entirely satisfied with the answer. Something about how other people were reacting to Charlotte Fairclough just wasn't adding up…

“Well anyway,” interrupted Isabelle, her usual perkiness restored, “I just wanted to stop by and welcome you back. Oh, and remind you that Adam Finnin will be here in a half hour or so.”

Hermione nodded, holding the door for her receptionist and thanking her for the information. With an unnecessary glance at the wall clock, Hermione began to prepare herself for her first client since returning to work. In her magically enlarged filing cabinet, Hermione kept the records from every session with every client. The second drawer containing the files was charmed to never be filled, so she pulled it out to nearly four feet before she got to the proper section of the alphabet. Her fingers flitted deftly through the names as she recited them aloud, pausing every so often to remind herself of the corresponding face to a name.

“Egnew…Ferguson…Findlay…ah, here you are, Finnin,” she said triumphantly, pulling from the drawer a thick folder labeled `Finnin, Adam.' On the front cover was a list of dates that Hermione and Adam had met. Hermione knew him well on a professional level—the tall and well-toned wizard was one of her first clients and one of the few to openly support her idea for the department by scheduling a session. She had only known him before the war as the young owner of Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop in Hogsmeade, so it was of little surprise that he recognized her from her student days.

She laid the tightly bounded parchment gently on her desk and fetched her partially filled water glass from the side table by her armchair. She barely registered the dropping frequency of the liquid as she poured it into the glass because her mind was focused on the progress of her sessions with Adam. What Hermione found so comfortable about Adam was that since he was one of her first clients, they had traveled the path of the healing process together and had formed a relationship that, but for its clear professional component, was as close to friendship as she had gotten with any of her clients. Harry used to joke that he felt like he and Adam had known each other their whole lives, since Hermione spoke of him so highly at home. Adam had even inadvertently inspired Hermione's use of a pensieve to wade through a client's individual memories in order to face their fear. Not many clients were in the position to sift through their own traumatizing reminders, but Adam felt the foray into his subconscious to be wonderfully cathartic. The few jars of memories were kept in the magically sealed first drawer of Hermione's clever cabinet.

The wall clock struck quarter to eleven and Hermione carried her glass of water back to her desk, humming along with the clock's chime. She plopped unceremoniously into her chair, grateful that no one was there to witness that particular part of her work ethic. While sipping sporadically on her water, she slid the folder toward her and noticed that it seemed lighter than before. She realized that she had accidentally grabbed two files from the cabinet and leaned forward to read the name on the partially obscured one on the bottom. What she saw made her freeze.

Three years ago, about the time that Adam had first started to meet with her and see was still inexperienced in her field, she pycho-analyzed herself and committed the findings to a stray piece of parchment. At the time, it was merely a way to familiarize herself with what she should expect from the average client dealing with the events of the war. Back then she was better at disassociating her emotions from her practice, though she supposed that her grief must have always been lurking just below her surface façade of cool and collected calm.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she had wondered what happened to it, but that didn't keep her from being surprised that it had been under `Granger, Hermione' the entire time. She shrugged to herself; she must have just forgotten that it still existed. Slowly she pulled the parchment toward her, intrigued and not a little curious of its contents. What would the amateur therapist Hermione have made of herself then? What would she make of herself now?

On the front cover was just one date, the day she had decided to name herself her own very first client. She lifted the cover and paused to read. The writing was surprisingly blunt and simple; no flowery explanations of feelings and their causes, but just pure and undeniable fact. Like all of the other files, the notes were in her script, because she had enchanted the quill that wrote them. This was a property not shared by the Quick-Quotes Quill, which for all intents and purposes had a mind of its own.

Name: Hermione Jane Granger

Date of Birth: 19/09/79

Observations: Misdirected anger toward Death Eaters and the Order manifested as angry feelings toward self—survivor's guilt. Tormented by feelings of physical and emotional inadequacy, stemming from death of Robert Henderson, Magical Law Enforcement Officer. Failure to revive Henderson appears to be main concern. Client reports troubled sleep, brief periods of insomnia, and mild depression.

Suggestive Treatment: Symptoms seem to be diminishing without treatment. Client's desire to overcome angry feelings coupled with the difficulty in maintaining awareness of guilt for a protracted period of time may be sufficient for recovery.

With a small smile that might have gone unnoticed by any witness, Hermione read the single word in the final category.

Support network: Harry

The next page in the file should have contained the dictated testimony of her association with Robert Henderson's death. She made a slow move to search beneath Adam's file for the elusive page, dreading the words that she had spoken three years before. There was barely time for her to register that beneath Adam's hefty file there lay nothing but the glossy surface of her desk blotter when a knock sounded. The next moment the clock chimed eleven and she quickly scrambled to tidy her desk of the detritus of files.

With a satisfying clink, she heard the second drawer to the filing cabinet shut and seal itself. She approached the door, smoothing her wispy, rebellious strands of hair, and found the slightly stooped figure of Adam Finnin on the other side. His long frame was bent over to accommodate the too short length of his walking cane and his stringy chocolate brown hair flopped casually into his eye.

“Hermione,” he said, his tone jovial, “Nose back at the grindstone I see.”

She nodded with an agreeing smile, chuckling at his unique greeting and accepting his one-armed hug. “It has been too long.” She stepped back and gestured for him to enter and seat himself while she hastily bustled back toward her desk to initiate the quill dictation. Out of habit he made a beeline straight for the armchair with the matching ottoman, keeping most of his weight on his intricately carved wooden cane. Moments later he was sighing in contentment, leaning back into the upholstery and propping his lame leg on the footrest, as Hermione handed him a steaming cup of tea and seated herself across from him.

Adam was in the minority of Hermione's clients that had fought in the war but were relatively unencumbered by its aftereffects. No, instead Adam enlisted Hermione to help him not get over but appreciate the death of his kid sister, Jemma, who had died in an awful broom flying accident when he was still at Hogwarts. Adam had been coping with the fact for nearly twenty years before the inception of Hermione's department at St. Mungo's.

Now having been her client for three years, there weren't many new details to surface. Hermione had always been a good listener, even when she put up her sometimes stubborn and admittedly bossy façade, so her sessions with Adam mostly just required steady silence on her part or a prompting question. She was quite proud to be a part of his grieving process, but equally sad that soon she would be no longer needed.

With this sobering thought in mind, she settled into her chair and asked, “So, what shall we discuss today?”

Adam gravely set his cup on the side table and rubbed his hands together vaguely. “I want to talk about the war,” he said, sounding confident and unsure at the same time.

Hermione deftly hid her look of surprise and merely nodded. “All right,” she said, offering him the chance to begin.

He sighed and looked away from her into the merrily crackling flames in the grate beside them. “Well it's just…given recent events, I can't really help but think about it. With Charlotte dying, I feel like it's opened up a whole new can of worms—”

Hermione visibly started and struggled to re-impose her calm exterior. “You knew Charlotte Fairclough?” she asked, remarkably without a quaver in her voice. She couldn't get over what a small world it was.

Shrugging indifferently, he replied, “Well, yes, everyone in Hogsmeade knows everyone else—and everyone else's business.” He chuckled good-naturedly. “The curse of a village life, I'm afraid.” Hermione smiled, coming back to herself. Adam continued, broaching the topic of his fight in the war and his lingering injury from it with almost uncharacteristic seriousness. She learned that the brave wizard before her had fought nearly every battle through to the final showdown—for many, the worst and best day of their entire lives—and had suffered a compound fracture of his right tibia a few days before Voldemort was destroyed. Since it had been inadequately splinted there in the field, there was little the Healers in St. Mungo's could do to restore his leg to normal mobility.

The next three-quarters of an hour passed quickly while the pair discussed not only significant events of the war, but whether they should consider the employment of the pensieve. Hermione wasn't sure it was necessary and felt that to the abuse the privilege of possessing a pensieve was also an abuse of her position as Adam's counselor, but the wizard seemed his typical adventurous self and removed the memories himself while Hermione gently protested. She let it go, hoping to persuade him against diving into his own memories during their next session. Adam had come to her initially to discuss the loss of his sister, and though Hermione was bound by her own sacred oath to help her clients in any way that she could, she felt that go veering off this direction would, in Adam's own words, “open up another can of worms.”

Thankfully, the clock struck the hour and they spent the next few minutes casually chatting while Adam prepared for his departure. Something struck Hermione as odd and she turned to ask Adam as he donned his cloak.

“If I may ask, what about the events concerning Mrs. Fairclough made you think of the war?”

Adam paused momentarily and Hermione was thinking that maybe she had gotten too personal when he answered quietly, “Oh, Charlotte fought next to me quite a few times after her husband died.” He cleared his throat in an unusual display of emotion, given that they had just spent the last hour talking about death and destruction. “She was a good shot, too,” he added with his customary light-heartedness, the moment before forgotten. Hermione couldn't help but return his smile.

By then she was already pulling open the door for Adam, surprised to find the forms of Harry and Persephone on the other side, clad in their scarlet Auror robes and smudged with soot. Realizing they must have traveled by Floo, Hermione glanced at her best friend and stifled a giggle at the hint of discomfort she saw gracing his features. She opened her mouth to question their visit when Persephone began speaking in her richly pure voice.

“Excuse the interruption, Miss Granger,” she said formally with an incline of her head to Hermione and Adam, “but the Auror department requires your signature on this affidavit declaring the case regarding the death of one Charlotte Henrietta Maria Fairclough closed. As her grief counselor, we are bound to inform you that her final cause of death was found to be suicide by poison ingestion.” She said this all with the slow and clinical detachment becoming to her profession, but Hermione was still caught off guard to hear it from her newest acquaintance.

Hermione's familiar manner vanished; the Aurors were there for business only, never mind their personal relationship with her. She turned to politely make her farewell to Adam when she felted strangely light-headed. She paused in the middle of her goodbye and felt three pairs of eyes regarding her curiously.

“All right, Hermione?” came Harry's concerned voice. The world seemed strangely sluggish, and it seemed to take ages for the sound of Harry's words to reach her ears. She shook her head as though to dislodge an errant strand of hair, and answered in a surprisingly clear voice. “Yes, I'm fine.”

All at once everything sped up to its usual pace and Hermione looked to where Persephone held out the parchment for her to sign. Hermione patted her pockets for a quill when one was handed to her from the quill shop owner himself. “Thanks,” she said, taking the proffered quill and scrawling her name on the indicated line. She hoped to never have to sign another affidavit like it, but knew that life dealt its own Bludgers every now and then. She returned the borrowed quill and Adam tipped his pointed wizard cap to her and smiling politely at Harry and Persephone before hobbling toward Isabelle's desk to schedule his next appointment. Persephone was meticulously rolling up the parchment, a scowl marring her otherwise beautiful face.

“So it was poison,” said Hermione with a sigh, more of a statement than a question.

Persephone rearranged her features into a look of respectful sympathy and answered, “Yes.”

“Conium maculatum,” added Harry.

“Hemlock,” said Hermione and Persephone simultaneously, though the former sounded incredulous while the latter was merely commenting. Surprise flickered briefly on her face before it relaxed into its usual brisk expression, the moment for condolences passed.

Hermione's brow was furrowed over Harry's puzzling behavior, when she suddenly remembered something. “Did you ever figure out why those witnesses were changing their testimony?” she asked curiously. Harry cringed as Persephone threw him a sharp glance. Hermione wanted to smack her forehead for her stupidity; clearly she had just revealed to his partner that Harry had told her some probably classified information. She winced in apology as he glanced away from Persephone's demanding face.

“It's not his fault,” she said, not sure why she felt the need to explain herself. “I made him tell me.”

Persephone did not look away from Harry's discomfiture and responded coolly, “An Auror should not be so easily persuaded.” She held her scolding gaze for several moments before suddenly bursting out into laughter. Hermione and Harry's eyes met in shocked confusion, their mouths gaping open. “Oh, honestly, you two! I don't care that someone here can't help but take their work home with them,” she laughed, jutting her head toward Harry. “Don't worry, I won't report you. Besides, you have enough dirt on me to fill a Martian crater anyway.”

Harry cracked a relieved smile. His next words were drowned out by a loud voice coming down the hall. “Hermione! Harry!” Three heads swiveled to see Mark on his way to Hermione's office, dressed in the Muggle clothing that he usually wore underneath his Healer robes. He wore a wide smile, which faltered slightly when he saw the third party. “Oh, hello Persephone,” he said more quietly, a tinge of color on his cheeks. Hermione and Harry carefully avoided looking at each other lest they collapse into laughter at the scene of adorable embarrassment.

“Hello, Mark,” Persephone replied with a pretty smile, her playful tone gone.

Mark cleared his throat and neither Hermione nor Harry made a move to salvage the conversation. “I'm just here to pick up Hermione for lunch,” he said to fill the silence.

Hermione noticed a flicker of something pass Persephone's face and she realized how it must have sounded. “To celebrate my return to wonderland of employment,” she added with a nervous laugh.

The Aurors smiled. “Then by all means, don't let us keep you,” Persephone said, her pleasant expression restored. She turned to Harry. “We should head back anyway,” she suggested, and he shrugged. He stepped closer to Hermione to hug her goodbye, something he wouldn't ordinarily have done in front of such company, but she accepted it warmly anyway. Soon she could only see his and Persephone's scarlet backs receding down the hall, and so she ducked back into her office to grab her bag before heading out to lunch with Mark.

A half hour later, when they were seated and tucking in ravenously to their sandwiches, Hermione decided to broach the topic of Mark's amusingly awkward behavior around Persephone.

“So Mark,” she began after taking a sip of her iced tea, “how are things with you and Persephone?” She made sure to ask when his mouth was unengaged; she didn't want to risk his choking for her own pleasure at poking fun at him.

He seemed to be thinking along the same lines, but he took another bite, Hermione knew, to stall for time. Finally he swallowed and answered Hermione's expectant expression. “She's a really nice girl.” He took another bite and made a show off unfolding his paper napkin with his free hand.

Hermione raised her eyebrows. “That's all?” she asked, entirely unsatisfied with lack of gossip that her friend was providing. She refused to believe that her poor matchmaking skills had anything to do with Mark's lack of success.

Suddenly he seemed to flare up, replying in an uncharacteristically defensive tone. “Yes, that's all. Blimey, what is this, the Spanish Inquisition?” He bit roughly into his sandwich, sitting back in his chair as though distancing himself from her would deter her questions as well.

She continued to chew calmly, betraying none of her feelings of confusion. She had thought the question was innocent enough, yet she had a hunch that his reaction wasn't entirely to do with the subject matter of their conversation. “No, this is one friend asking another a simple question. But if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine,” she said, continuing to eat her meal. Their lunch hour was already half over and Hermione wanted to make sure she got a chance to look over the notes from sessions with Adam and other clients before she had to return home to get ready for the night out with her two best friends.

Mark seemed to sag in his seat and put down his partially eaten sandwich. He ran his hand through his hair in a style oddly reminiscent of Harry and said, “I'm sorry, Hermione, I've just had a rough day. I shouldn't take it out on you.”

“You're right, you shouldn't,” agreed Hermione in mock sternness. “What happened?”

He made a sound halfway between annoyance and embarrassment. “Well, somehow Pye found out that I brought Persephone into the storeroom. You know how the attending Healers are, sticklers for rules and whatnot, and we're not supposed to bring anyone into those designated rooms. And he just kept going on and on about how it's dangerous to bring outsiders in, you never know what could be stolen, blah blah blah…” He sighed and buried his face in his arms, the sandwich forgotten.

She thought Pye might have a point. “Have there been many thefts lately?” she asked curiously.

Mark looked sheepish. “A few,” he admitted. “But I swear that I've remembered to lock up the cabinets every day! I guess the Knockturn Alley market for poisons is just too irresistible to thieves,” he said, shrugging.

“You know a lot about it,” said Hermione, carefully keeping her eyes on her cup and the tone of accusation out of her voice. Mark's tendency to leave the contents of those cabinets open to anyone who might walk by was not something she could accept an excuse for.

Hermione's thoughts immediately jumped to their own conclusion as to why Mark had stuck a girl he was seeing into an empty room. “What exactly were you two doing in the storeroom?” she asked, waggling her eyebrows in hopes of raising her friend's spirits.

He rolled his eyes at her implication, though Hermione saw the beginnings of a smile on his lips. “For your information, Miss Granger, I had forgotten to lock the cabinets again and I asked Persephone if she wouldn't mind coming with me while I did it. We weren't even in there that long, but someone blabbed to Healer Pye anyway. I'm afraid he'll have my head for this.”

Hermione reached across the table and laid her hand reassuringly on his. “I'm sure it won't be that bad,” she said comfortingly. “And at the very worst, they'll give you some time off to take care of your housework.” When he didn't laugh at her reference to that morning's joke, she followed his gaze, which was still fixed on her hand atop his. Quickly she retracted it and an uneasy silence settled over them.

Hermione found herself clearing her throat repeatedly. “So you like her then?”

Mark looked confused. “Who?”

“Persephone.”

“Oh,” he said, shrugging his shoulders noncommittally, “yeah, we get on quite well.”

“I sense there's a `but.' What's wrong with her? Or should I be asking what's wrong with you?” Hermione joked, trying to bring back the previous moment's jollity.

Mark sighed and picked at the remains of his meal. “There's nothing wrong with her,” he said finally. “She's just not—” he broke off, looking unsure of himself.

“Not what?” she prompted.

He looked at her, really looked at her, straight in the eyes in a way that only one man had before. Hermione thought she knew what was coming and she opened her mouth to stop him, but he spoke first. “She's not you,” he said with no attempt to hide his feelings.

Hermione's thoughts were running pell-mell through her head. Vaguely, she supposed there must have been something in his sandwich to make him speak so plainly when they had been dancing around it for years. She cast about for an adequate reply that would set the record forever straight between them.

“It's okay,” Mark said, a sad smile on his face. “You don't have to say anything. I know that you belong to Harry.”

The feminist part of her retorted, “I don't belong to anyone.” She sighed helplessly. “But I would be lying if I said I didn't wish that there was just more than friendship between he and I.”

Mark nodded in a dejected understanding. “Then it would never work between us,” he said simply.

She leaned forward and grasped his hand, realizing what an odd setting they were in to be discussing something so serious. “I'm sorry, Mark,” she said, and meant it, “please believe that I've thought about us a thousand times, and if it—”

“Weren't for Harry, you'd be with me,” he interrupted, sounding not bitter, only disappointed.

She nodded, not having anything else to do. “He's my best friend,” she said quietly, squeezing his hand once before letting go.

“Does he know how you feel?” Mark asked, seemingly in the mood to torture himself. She shook her head, looking away, and then felt Mark's fingers under her chin, bringing her eyes back to meet his. “Then he's an idiot for not seeing what's right in front of him.”

A laugh escaped her and she swiped at her eyes which had become overbright during the conversation. “Hey, that's my best friend you're talking about,” she said as they gathered their trash and began the return journey to St. Mungo's. She was glad that she and Mark had finally had that necessary conversation and she walked away from him toward her office with a greater respect for him—and every intention of encouraging him to go after Persephone.

Hours later, back in her flat and reeling only slightly from her lunchtime conversation, Hermione Granger divested herself of her stiflingly formal work clothes and slipped into something more comfortable. For some girls ready to hit the pubs and clubs of London, “comfortable” meant next to nothing, or at the very most some tight, décolletage-revealing top and a miniskirt leaving no room to wonder the answer to the female equivalent of boxers or briefs. But for Hermione who, despite her slim figure and killer proportions, this meant her slightly baggy but reliable pair of jeans, a sparkly but full-coverage yellow top, and some fancy heels for good measure. She doubted the logic behind this last outfit choice, but she could practically hear the impatience coming from where Ron was plopped on the living room couch and didn't want to hunt for another pair of shoes. Luna had opted to stay home, not a fan of the smoky atmosphere of the pub.

“Oh, give it a rest, Ron, I'm coming!” she yelled as she shut the door to her room and made her way down the hall.

“How does she always know?” asked a bemused Ron of an equally amused Harry. Both wizards turned to look as Hermione entered the living room. Ron gave a little whistle that ordinarily would have annoyed her but tonight she was feeling slightly giddy, for she had decided that tonight was the night that she would cross the imaginary line that she and Harry had drawn between them long before and tell him that she loved him. Of course, she conceded that the amount of drink that would be in her by the end of the night would probably help quite a bit with her planned confession.

So Ron's reply allowed him to maintain possession of certain bits of his anatomy and she even did a little twirl, much to his chagrin. “So are we ready to go?” she asked, smiling wider than she had in a long time. The two young men nodded and Harry went to retrieve his jacket from the peg, bringing back hers as well. She thanked him as he handed it to her and thought she felt his eyes on her as she pulled her long and especially straightened hair free from the collar of her coat. When she glanced over at him, she caught his eye and he said simply, “You look nice in yellow.”

She blushed heavily, blessing the darkness of the stairwell as the trio climbed down to the ground floor, for she had selected this shade of top specifically hoping it would remind Harry of the robes that she had worn to Bill Weasley's wedding and that he had commented on so long ago. She skipped down the last few flights and hardly felt the usual London nightly chill when the front door was opened.

Minutes later it seemed, Hermione, Harry, and Ron were tucked into a booth at one of their favorite Muggle pubs. There was a pitcher of beer in the middle of the table and while Hermione was pining for the sweet taste of butterbeer, her stomach had begun to do flip-flops as the reality of her “plan” set in. Ron's eyes were glued to TV screen which was showing one of England's ever-present football matches, and Harry seemed oddly quiet, just sipping every now and then from his glass.

Suddenly his eyes shifted and he caught her staring. Color tinged her cheeks a bit, but she did not look away. “You all right?” she asked with concern, too low for Ron to notice.

He immediately hitched a large but strained smile on his face. “Yeah, just a little surprised at you is all,” he answered.

Hermione put down her glass and poured herself more from the pitcher. “At me?” she asked in response to his enigmatic statement.

Harry nodded, seemingly more ruffled than he was pretending. “Yeah, I didn't think you were going to give up on Charlotte so quickly. It was like you lost faith in her or something.”

Snippets of that morning's overheard conversation between he and Ron came floated back to Hermione as though through a haze. “Are you kidding? What are you even talking about?” she asked, anger sparking for no real reason. There voices were still though, so Ron hadn't looked away from the TV yet, but Hermione could sense some kind of strange undercurrent lacing their conversation.

He leaned on his elbows, bringing his head closer to hers. “I'm talking about you saying that there's no way Charlotte killed herself one minute and then completely changing your mind the next! `Oh, sorry that I made you keep your team on a pointless case for two weeks, Harry. How silly of me, she really was a depressed woman!'”

Hermione's mouth dropped open, angry that Harry would bring this up when they were just trying to go out and enjoy themselves and hurt that he would belittle her by exaggerating her behavior at what was a very difficult time in her job. “How dare you,” she said in an intensely quiet tone. “I'm sorry that I so inconveniently kept you and your team from all of the dangerous missions because I forced to simply follow through a little more thoroughly on a suspicious death! I know investigative work is not as glamorous as busting a bunch of Dark wizards in the act of capturing the Hogwarts Express, but forgive me if for once in my life my emotions got the better of me. Forgive me if for a while I couldn't think straight and thought that there was more to Charlotte than there very clearly was!” She finished, breathing hard and fighting the welling of tears in her eyes. Her voice had risen steadily throughout her little speech, so that now both Harry and Ron were staring at her—Ron fearfully and Harry ashamedly. She looked from one to the other to speak and when neither did, she excused herself to the toilet.

She crossed the crowded pub, following the sign for the ladies' room to a small hallway where the doors to the two loos stood along with a few payphones. She leaned herself against the wall for a second, catching her breath and wondering how long that had all been bottled up. She supposed Harry had a right to be upset, she probably cost him some brownie points with his boss for stubbornly refusing to back down from the pointless investigation. She wanted to apologize for blowing up on him, but more than that she wanted back her giddiness from earlier.

“I'm sorry, Hermione,” came a familiar deep voice from behind her. She turned around and lost herself in his earnest green eyes. “I shouldn't have said those things, I know you were going through a tough time.”

She shook her head and instinctively put a hand on his shoulder. “No, you were right. And I'm sorry if you got in trouble with your boss.”

His face broke out in an amused half-grin. “I'm not too worried about him, and to be honest I think my team—especially Doyle—was relieved that it was over.”

She returned his smile. “So are we okay?” she asked hopefully, removing the hand that was resting on his shoulder to indicate the space between them.

He grinned widely, his smile genuine this time, and stepped forward to embrace her quickly. “Of course,” he said. “Now let's go get pissed.” She laughed aloud and followed him back to where Ron was holding their table.

“What's all this then?” interrupted Ron as the pair approached. “Are we done arguing like schoolchildren now? We're supposed to be having fun… Oi, bartender, fetch us another round!” he yelled, waving his hand obnoxiously.

When the trio was happily provided for, Harry called for a toast. “To Ron's fine business strategery!” he joked, holding up his glass abruptly so that liquid sloshed down the sides.

“Strategery!” echoed Hermione and Ron promptly, raising their glasses to clink Harry's. They had just finished sipping and began dabbing at the generous amount of spilled beer on the tabletop when Harry groaned and rustled around in his pockets.

“What is it?” asked Hermione, at once concerned. Harry pulled out the same credit card looking device she had seen once before and after a moment of staring at it, looked up at her and Ron with disappointment all over his face.

“I'm being paged, I'm supposed to come in straightaway. Sorry, guys,” he said, rummaging about for his jacket, and patting his pocket to check for his wand.

“That's rotten luck, mate,” said Ron sympathetically. “Looks like Hermione and I will have to drink your share.” Harry laughed and got up to leave, tossing a few coins on the table to pay for his drink.

“When will you be home?” asked Hermione, trying not to sound as forlorn as she felt.

“Late, probably,” he answered, leaning down to kiss her on the cheek. A few final goodbyes and he was gone, leaving Hermione rubbing her cheek in disappointment.

“Oh, I'm not that bad of company, am I?” joked Ron, sensing her moodswing. She cracked a smile and tried to forget her dashed plans—tomorrow was another day, after all. She could tell him then.

She sighed again, wondering when she had started doing that so much. Tracing the grain of the wooden table with her finger, she said, “Sorry, Ron. It's just that this isn't how I wanted the night to go.”

Ron leaned forward, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. “What did you have in mind?” he joked.

She looked up and swatted his arm, upsetting his drink. “Let me remind you, Weasley, that I am a lady and you are a married man,” she said with dignity. She caught herself in the midst of another sighing fest. Ron was staring at her with a concerned expression, but she gathered from years of experience and the knowledge of her friend's emotional range that he probably wouldn't ask her about it directly. “It's been a long day,” she offered by way of explanation, smiling wanly and rubbing circles on her temples.

“Yeah, you and Harry both I think,” replied Ron, filling up their glasses.

Hermione laughed humorlessly. “But I don't think Harry had any poorly timed romantic advances,” she said. “At least not yet,” she added, thinking of her own intentions for the evening.

Instantly Ron was put in protective, brother mode. “What happened? Did someone do something to you?” he demanded, subconsciously cracking his knuckles.

“No, nothing like that,” she answered, and he relaxed. “It's just I'd had a really good hour with Adam—you remember him?” Ron nodded in recollection of the man he often joked was Hermione's other best friend. “Well, then Mark and I went out to lunch and, well, he as much said that he fancied me.”

Ron blew out a puff of air. “That's heavy, mate.” Hermione wrinkled her nose; he knew it annoyed her to be called that, but she suspected he was simply trying to lighten the mood. “I'm guessing by your ecstatic behavior tonight that you turned him down?”

She nodded and buried her head in her arms where they rested on the table. She suddenly wondered what Ron would think about her and Harry as a couple. Steeling herself, she decided to ask him, knowing that as the third component of their inseparable trio, his opinion mattered greatly. She brought her head up and fixed him with a steady, serious gaze. “Yes, I refused him. Ron, there's someone else, and I think that it's time I told somebody,” she said flatly, accounting for her friend's natural capacity to take everything literally.

“Bloody hell, Hermione, it sounds like you're breaking up with me. You're not, are you?” he teased.

Hermione huffed. “Ron, I'm serious!”

“I know, I know, sorry. I couldn't help it. Besides, I already knew there was `someone else' as you put it, anyway,” he said with an indifferent shrug. She raised an eyebrow disbelievingly—how could Teaspoon Boy possibly be that keenly aware of the feelings she had been burying for years? “It's Harry,” he said, and Hermione stared at him with her eyes wide, suddenly worrying that she had been horribly obvious the whole time. “Don't worry, he has no clue, the daft git,” Ron added, patting her hand gently.

Hermione was just about speechless. “How did you know?” she spluttered.

Ron grinned cheekily. “Actually I didn't,” he admitted, “I was just taking the mickey, but you sort of gave it away.” He laughed at her shocked expression. “You and Harry, huh? Well, he's better than Viktor, anyway. Why haven't you told him?” Ron asked in interest. “And don't give me that load of bollocks about how it was `never the right time' or `you didn't want to ruin your friendship,' because a bloke can only take so much,” he added.

Hermione cracked an involuntary smile, hardly daring to believe that she was having this conversation with Ron of all people. “Well, you're almost spot on, but I suppose we can lump it in the plain old `Insecurity' category. You've seen the kind of girl he goes for—Cho, Ginny…” she said, ticking off her fingers as she thought of their names.

Ron shrugged again. “You should just tell him,” he suggested as though it wasn't something she had agonized over for years.

“Thanks, Ron, I'll just go do that,” she replied sarcastically, finishing her pint and reaching for the pitcher. Ron stilled her hand.

“I know you're too proud to ask me, so I'll just tell you—I don't know how Harry feels. Contrary to popular belief, we did talk about more than just girls in the boy's dorm in Gryffindor tower. But for what it's worth, I think he'd be an idiot to say no to you.”

Hermione smiled, touched at Ron's words. “That's what Mark said,” she laughed.

Ron sat back and clapped his hands definitively. “Well, I for one am tired of your dour expression. I came here to celebrate and that's what we're going to do, with or without Harry. Now, there's only one way to cheer up my mate Hermione, and that's—”

“Cheeky vimtos,” interrupted Hermione, feeling the mischievious smile creeping over her face.

Ron returned the grin and dug around in his pockets. With a dismayed look, he turned to Hermione and asked, “Hey Hermione, can I borrow some money?” Hermione just laughed, handing over a ten pound note as he got up to order at the bar.

Two hours later, Hermione and Ron were laughing like third years over some story involving the time Harry was supposed to go undercover as a patron in some pub in Dublin. Though she had heard about the incident several times already, Hermione let Ron continue adding his own slurring embellishments. “So, he was sittin' there, yeah? And was like `I should order a pint or two to fit in, innit?' `Cept we both know Harry's the lightest lightweight there ever was, so before he knew it, he was falling out of his chair an' the bloke he was meant to be tailin' got away!” Ron finished with a great snort of laughter that drew the stares of many less intoxicated patrons, but Hermione wasn't exactly in the state to recognize embarrassment.

“I like him,” she said, resting her head on her hand and looking into the distance dreamily. Ron followed her gaze as though trying to see who she was talking about, but finding no one turned to her and asked, “Who?”

“Harry,” she said to clarify.

“Me too,” agreed Ron, and Hermione promptly burst into giggles.

“No you don't, Ron,” she said, patting his shoulder. “You don't like like him.”

Ron grasped her meaning and covered his mouth to stifle his own giggles. She cringed at the foulness of the breath, and leaned forward on the table. “But you can't tell him, because I have to tell him,” she warned in a stage whisper.

.Ron squinted his eyes at his watch, ignoring her comment. “Wow, it's already past one, I should get you home or Mr. Auror Man will kill me,” he said. He glanced furtively around to make sure no one watching and then pulled out his wand to perform the sobering charm on himself. He winced as the feeling of being doused in icewater washed over him and shook the remaining cobwebs from his head. “Up you get, Hermione, time to go.”

A lock of hair fell over her face and she groaned. “Aaaawww, now I'm going to have to wash all this smoke out of my hair,” she complained. Ron lifted her bodily from the bench seat, and as she stood up, she realized her state of inebriation did not exactly permit any kind of coordination. Leaning heavily against him, Ron steered her to the car and chuckled at her nonsense words. She must have dozed off while they were driving because the next time she opened her eyes, Ron was unbuckling her from the seat and gently extricating her from the car.

“Ron is soooo macho,” she breathed, laughing at her own joke.

He wrinkled his nose. “You smell like a distillery,” he remarked, earning him a glare from Hermione who insisted that he started the whole thing. A laborious fifteen minutes later, Ron was knocking on the door of her flat. She reached forward and rapped her knuckles ineffectually against the wood door as well, slumping sideways immediately and clutching her heel shoes in her other hand.

Harry answered, still wearing his Auror robes. His grim expression morphed into a concerned frown at once. “What the bloody hell happened here?” he demanded of his best friend, gesturing at Hermione rumpled and worse for wear appearance.

Ron laughed. “Cheeky vimtos—her idea,” he explained innocently. “What's the problem, mate?” he asked Harry when they had negotiated Hermione past the stoop and down the hall to her bedroom.

Harry ran a hand through his hair, speaking quietly to Ron in a worried voice. Hermione could hear them but their words seemed to be passing through some odd filter in her ears, making them sound fuzzy and faraway. “The call I got, it was another death, another suicide,” he said. “And apparently he was one of Hermione's patients.”

Ron sucked in a breath through his teeth in a low whistle. “I could sober her up if you want—”

“No, no, let her sleep, I'll tell her tomorrow,” he said hastily. “Merlin, Ron, this is gonna kill her.”

“Why, who was it?”

“Ron, it was Adam.”

A/N: Gosh, this was a long chapter, huh? Thanks for reading! It would be such a waste to come this far and not leave a review, don't you think???

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A/N: So…the chapters are becoming increasingly harder to write as the story moves along. In this chapter I begin the resolution (I think there are something like 3 or 4 more chapters left) but I have to be really careful not to give too much away. As some of you know, this is my first time writing a mystery fic, and it’s only now that I fully appreciate how difficult it is to pull off. As a result, this chapter seems very angsty and features what I’ve developed as a really cynical and downtrodden Hermione. I don’t really like it, but I’d love to know what you think about everything. Also in here is a previously posted one-shot called “Just Thinking” that I originally planned as a flashback for this fic. Sorry about the long AN. Without further ado, here’s chapter 7!

Chapter 7—Dangerously Powerful

Perhaps it was the shock of Harry’s news the night before that had rendered Hermione defenseless against the engulfing black cloud of unconsciousness, or perhaps she had been so far along in the natural progression of drunkenness—tipsy, buzzed, unconscious, hungover—that she was simply adhering to the rules as she was wont to do. In any case, her sleep was not what one would call restful, for she began the process of awakening more exhausted than when she had gone to sleep.

In the dim morning light that stealthily eased its way in through the blinds, Hermione stared around her bedroom. The wardrobe doors were closed to hide the few tasteful and practical articles of clothing that hung there. Her gaze slid to where a neatly folded knitted blanket—the first she had ever finished and kept for herself, a relic from her Hogwarts days long ago—rested as it should on the red armchair in the tight corner behind where the door would swing open. The dawn light made the chair look pale and insubstantial, its usually crisp, sharp outline indistinct from the designs of its wallpaper background. Sometimes she would sit there and read over notes on clients after a day with a puzzling session, her mind trying to put all the facts seamlessly together to form both the underlying cause of someone’s heartache and the means of alleviating it.

Hermione smiled wryly to herself; her mind was always trying to piece things together, whether it was a riddle to uncover a Stone or a basilisk, or just helping someone, even if that someone was herself. But there would be no more of that, for certainly her boss would see to it that she was sacked—how many other psychotherapists had two patients not only die, but commit suicide right after seeing them?

She heard Harry’s worried tone from the night before. Another suicide…It was Adam. Her lips formed the words and she felt a bitter taste fill her mouth. How could such words bring so much pain when they had come from the man she loved?

The clock on her bedside table said that it was still early. She considered skiving off from work; her department was probably doing damage control if the news of Adam’s suicide had been leaked to the press. Hermione felt a great surge of pity for Isabelle, who Hermione imagined was probably fielding off dozens of owls from Hermione’s other clients. No one would want to be treated by someone who had driven two of her patients to suicide. In fact, she half expected an owl message calling for her immediate resignation any minute. She doubted she had the fight left to protest, whatever her client’s “best interests.” Perhaps she wasn’t cut out for the work after all; she had her own demons to exorcise.

Feeling a quietly accepted sense of defeat, she threw the covers off her and inferred from the pervading stench of smoke that neither of her best friends had thought to—or felt comfortable enough to—remove her clothes from night before at the pub. As she stood up, the blood left her already throbbing and stuffy head and left her dizzily stumbling to the window.

The unusually fine weather from the previous evening had not held; gray and bleak clouds blocked every potential patch of blue sky. She glanced back at the furniture in her bedroom, made brighter by this weak morning light, and put a hand to her eyes. Maybe opening the window was not such a good idea in her condition.

A door down the hall shut softly and footsteps padded lightly toward her room. Hermione considered returning to bed and hiding there for the rest of the day. Today was going to be a day of vulnerable moments and she doubted Harry would enjoy being privy to that—perhaps temporary hibernation was the answer.

She wished she could be angry. Anger was a simpler emotion than grief. She wished she could find a way through the past that seemed to all of a sudden be consuming her very existence. She wished she knew why she couldn’t think of anyone or anything besides those who had died and what hand she had played in their death. Why was she tormenting herself?

The footsteps paused just outside her door and Hermione could almost see Harry pressing his ear up against it, trying to surmise her state from what sounds permeated through the wood. What would he conclude by the silence of her gazing out the window? It would say nothing about how she was feeling. It would not tell him how slept or that her dreams had been filled with Adam.

“Do you know how it feels, Hermione, to lose a sibling?” Adam had asked her this on their very first session nearly three years before. She had shaken her head in reply, that void within her where the love for a brother or sister would go pulsating with purpose. No, she knew nothing of siblings. It was difficult for one to lose something one never had in the first place. In her whole life, Hermione had only come across one other person who had understood that pain-without-loss.

Harry.

She remembered when she discovered this fact about her best friend that she had thought she knew everything about.

They had stayed up one night in some old inn outside of Dover. It was late and though the three of them—Hermione, Harry and Ron—were exhausted from Apparating all over the countryside searching for a manor the hoped housed their targeted horcrux, only Ron had drifted off to one of the bedrooms for sleep. Hermione and Harry sat side by side on the hearthrug in silence, leaning their backs and shoulders against the lower part of the couch behind them.

The crackling fire and the trio's constant lack of success was making Hermione lethargic and dull-witted. A sudden snap as the fire devoured a packet of air on the log didn't even make her jump; she doubted she could even raise her wand to defend herself if Voldemort's entire army barged into the inn's little three room cabin.

“We'll try in Sussex again tomorrow,” said Harry in the authoritative tone he had adopted since their quest began. She was glad for the injected optimism even if it was forced, for after months with little to guide them but Dumbledore's hunches, Hermione's mood had grown steadily gloomier.

But for Harry, she turned her head toward him and replied with a hearty confidence she did not feel, “All right, can't hurt to be thorough, as Ron would say.” Ron had been making up for her noticeable pessimism by putting a positive spin on everything, something none of the trio had anticipated.

Harry returned her smile, but Hermione detected the pain behind it. It brought back the images of the eleven-year-old boy, just discovering himself as a wizard and feeling lost along the way. She marveled at how the years had fallen away with just that one tragic look. She watched his profile as he stared into the flames, his arms crossed tightly over his chest protectively, though his right hand was ever flexed for quick retrieval of his wand should he need it. It was in moments like this when she saw his grief, not during the shouting matches that frequented her fifth year. He was still mourning Dumbledore, Sirius, Cedric, countless others that had yet to fall by Voldemort's hand, those that would surely fall if they failed to defeat him. The two people he so closely resembled but couldn't remember. The words were out of her mouth before she'd even had a chance to think.

“They would be proud of you, you know.”

He turned his emerald gaze to her and the confusion that expected to see, once she had gotten over her own shock at her bold words, wasn't there. He knew exactly who she meant.

She was braced to apologize, unsure if she had overstepped even their wide bound of friendship, but Harry waved her off. They settled into a tense silence.

“Do you really think so?” he asked, once more facing her. She felt the cold, hard weight of his doubt pressing into her. This was not the time for light teasing or jokes; Harry did not often invite discussion about his parents and a simple “Of course, don't be silly, Harry,” might close him off to her forever.

She placed a hand on his arm, absently adding the feel of the toned muscles under her slender fingers as further evidence of his emergence into manhood, and tried to find the words. Somehow she found herself echoing words she had once said to him long ago. “You're a great wizard, Harry.” He smiled, presumably remembering the first time she had said that to him just before he'd gone to face Quirrel. She smiled back, lost for a second in the way that just his grin brightened his entire face, then grew serious. “I never knew your parents, so I could not truthfully say how they would feel. But I do know that they gave me my best friend and that I, at least, am proud of him.”

They stared at one another for what felt like an eternity and Hermione thought to herself for the first time that if she had only one view to gaze at for the rest of her life, Harry's green eyes, sparkling with emotion that he did not often share with the world, would be it. Then another log popped, causing the pair to jump slightly apart. Had they been leaning toward each other? Her face blushed at the idea. The moment was gone.

They retreated into themselves once more, and Hermione wondered what her raised heartbeat and flushed cheeks meant for her friendship with Harry.

“Tell me about your parents.” Harry's words were spoken as more of a request than a demand, but Hermione suspected that she would have acquiesced either way, to keep the conversation flowing.

So she talked about her family—their jobs, their quirks, their bafflement of her magical abilities though they loved her just the same, family trips to Brighton when she was younger, sitting on her dad's shoulders when they would visit street fairs or watch parades when she was little. She summarized her simple Muggle life for him, bringing as much vigor to her words as she was able, though she doubted he could ever take them for himself as the substitute of the real thing. She glanced at him and knew from his expression that despite the added vitality to her words, he had sensed the emptiness in them.

“Only child?” he asked simply, an understanding half-smile on his face.

She swallowed her reflexive defense of “I had them all to myself,” and nodded truthfully to both what he said and what it implied. “I should have liked to be a big sister,” she said, sharing one of her dearest secrets for the first time.

“You would have been a great big sister,” Harry replied at once, seeming to know that she had never spoken of her wish before.

She was taken aback by the promptness of his answer. “How do you know?” she asked.

He struggled and looked down at his hands clasped in his lap. “Because you're pretty good at bossing me and Ron around,” he joked and she cracked a smile at her own expense.

“Well, I think you'd make an excellent big brother,” she asserted, nudging him playfully with her shoulder. They lapsed into quiet again, but only briefly. Hermione felt herself inexplicably in the mood for sharing. “When I had first read about twins, I used to look for mine everywhere. I never told anyone, but I always felt like maybe she was near, just out of sight. Darting around the corner just as I'd entered the hallway, a reflection in a windowpane….Why else was I so lonely, if not because my twin couldn't find me? Ordinary people, untwins, seek their soul mate, take lovers, marry. Tormented by their incompleteness, they strive to be part of a pair. Maybe that's just what I was feeling.

“It's hard to be an only child, not just because there's no one to play with. There's no united sibling front when parents are strict, no one to share secrets with, no one to teach things to,” she said, her words coming out in quick bursts only to trail off in the end.

“It's not even loss is it?” said Harry when Hermione was finished. She shifted her gaze to regard him quizzically. “You can't lose something you never had,” he elaborated.

She frowned, having never considered this. “I wonder if that's better or worse. It's like the pang of loss but without the justification.”

Harry nodded. “Exactly,” he agreed.

“And it doesn't matter how much you want it, how many nights you spend wishing for it,” she said quietly.

“Some things are just out of your control,” Harry added cryptically. His brow furrowed and she got the feeling that he was talking about more than just family. She watched as a weight seemed to resettle on his shoulders and she supposed that he was thinking again of the prophecy that had so cruelly directed his life. Oh, that Snape had never heard it! her mind cried, wanting to reach out to her friend and knowing that her desire to comfort him concealed some ulterior motives that she wasn't sure she was ready to think about quite yet.

“We should have talked like this a long time ago,” he said, bringing Hermione out of her musings.

She heaved an exaggerated sigh and replied in a blasé manner, “Oh, I think we've been quite occupied with our quest for bits of Dark Lord soul, wouldn't you agree?”

Harry laughed, the sound unfitting to the seriousness behind her words. “But even before then, we've had about six whole years now,” he insisted.

“There's always been something, Harry,” she pointed out with a hollow laugh. “Basilisks and imposter professors, werewolves and nosy reporters.”

“But there are more important things,” he said finally, after a lengthy silence punctuated by crackling flame. He didn't seem to realize that he had just quoted her twelve-year-old words once more.

She gave an involuntary yawn and leaned her head back against the seat of the couch. The conversation had buoyed her somehow, despite the heavy subject matter. She had spoken words aloud to Harry that she was sometimes afraid to even voice in her own head, but she knew that Harry wouldn't betray her confidence—even to Ron. And more importantly he understood what she felt and was able to put words to the feeling.

Hermione's thoughts returned to her body's reaction to his close proximity, to her instinctive will to protect him from all hurt, to her want of him to look at her again with that sparking understanding gaze. She set these aside in a safe little corner of her mind, advising herself “For now, keep them here.” She could bring them back out and admire them later—when Voldemort was gone and Harry was free of his burden.

“There's always something,” she repeated through a yawn, almost to herself. She didn't see Harry looking over at her in puzzlement as she peered through heavily lidded eyes at the dying fire. She was content to do so for now, just to sit and think about everything and nothing with the presence of her best friend at her shoulder. Just thinking.

A small crash followed by a muffled curse from the kitchen startled Hermione from her reminiscences. Hermione supposed that Harry was unsuccessfully preparing breakfast as quietly as he could.

Ignoring the dull persistent throb at her temples which, coupled with slight churning in her stomach, served as a reminder of her night out—as well as the news that sobered her up—Hermione sighed as her thoughts came full circle.

Adam had lost his sister. Charlotte had lost her husband. These were things Hermione didn’t understand—who was she fooling? She ran her hands over her face, the movement drawing her gaze to where her reflection in the mirror at her vanity copied her. “I didn’t think I can take much more of this,” she said to image-Hermione, who nodded back in agreement. She sighed heavily. “Well, time to face the day,” she announced, grabbing her robe from her it was slung on the back of the chair at her vanity. The bottom of the robe was pinned beneath a chair leg, so Hermione tugged to free it, accidentally knocking over the chair and her briefcase that had been sitting on it.

Hermione suppressed a huff as parchment went skidding across the carpet. She tossed the robe onto her bed and stooped down to pick up the sheets. It was while she was shuffling them into a neat stack that she noticed something odd about the sheet on top.

The heading of the page indicated that it was a continuation from her notes that she had made weeks before following Charlotte’s session. Hermione supposed they must have become separated from the rest of the case file when she had handed it over to her boss. Her writing was neat and without flourish or flowery prose, but every now and then a personal thought was interjected. It conveyed in straightforward English the observations and interpretations of Charlotte’s behavior and speech that Hermione committed to parchment the afternoon after meeting Charlotte for the first and last time.

Hermione felt a dull pain in her forehead as she struggled to remember writing the words that she was seeing on the page. Not only could she not remember how her hand had guided the quill but she couldn’t remember the very events that it was recounting.

~*~

Mrs. Fairclough—Charlotte-- stopped me just before leaving and inquired whether she could ask me a question. I found the dread that had subsequently percolated up was unfounded when all she asked was whether I’ve ever been in love. I sensed that she had placed a lot of significance in my answer to this question. No one foreign to the pain of love and loss could ever hope to help another overcome their grief; I think she and I both understand this.

She seems to have loved Mr. Fairclough dearly, but I hope I’m not too hasty to presume that she has already initiated the healing process herself. She seems intent just remembering him; I believe it will be beneficial for her to discuss her husband in greater detail in a setting outside of the war…

~*~

Hermione felt a surge of pain in her forehead and found herself pressing her fingers against it as though that would alleviate the tension building there. She blinked as she read the words in her own hand that directly contradicted what she knew in her mind to be true. At least, what she thought was true.

It was possible that someone else had written it and planted the parchment as some malicious practical joke—anyone could have broken in to her office, and wasn’t her enchanted quill just sitting there in her desk drawer? Anyone could have mimicked her writing…

But Hermione somehow doubted that this was the case. An idea was sharpening in her mind, less a conscious thought than a feeling, something completely unconnected to memory: she did write this. Charlotte was intending on returning for another session.

Witnesses changing their testimony, the sudden deaths of Charlotte and Adam, the queer looks from Harry, Mark, and Isabelle when Hermione mentioned a weepy Charlotte, her sudden change of mind where Charlotte was concerned—were they all related? Was she, Hermione, becoming another victim of memory alteration?

Suddenly, the pain in her head escalated to the point where Hermione began to see dark spots at the edges of her vision. This blackness marched resolutely across her field of sight and the sound of her blood rushing through her veins pounded noisily in her ears. She mustered up her remaining cognitive strength and staggered to grab the quill she had seen earlier on her vanity. She could feel darkness beginning to engulf her as she wrote one word—MEMORY—in spiky capitals on the parchment detailing Charlotte’s case. The pain increased. She collapsed just as a pair of arms reached out to steady her and the last thing she saw before blacking out were the concerned green eyes of Harry.

~*~

In her sleep Hermione was surprised to find a calming numbness overtaking her. Her head no longer throbbed but instead she felt a blissful relaxation.

“Everything is going to be all right, Hermione,” said a familiar disembodied voice. Hermione closed her eyes and smiled, not knowing who was speaking and not caring, but agreeing with them all the same. It was going to be all right.

“Just stop fighting it,” the voice told her, lulled her. “It hurts when you fight it.”

Hermione nodded. The voice spoke the truth. It did hurt to resist. She should just let whatever it was run its course. Wouldn’t it be much easier to obey?

Another, weaker voice: “That’s stupid, Hermione. Since when did you forget to question authority?” The question ended in the tell-tale huff that Hermione had come to associate with her own conscience.

Hermione’s dream self frowned at this dissention. Come to think, this feeling of sweet powerlessness was familiar—

“No!” came the first voice, its once soothing tone now insistent and commanding. “Listen now: Charlotte Fairclough was unhappy. You couldn’t save her-- just like you couldn’t save Robert Henderson!”

She gasped, horrified by this brave pronouncement. She shouldn’t accept this as truth, should she? The other voice that Hermione recognized as her own, having gained strength, matched the tone of the first. “Don’t believe it! Someone is tampering with your mind!”

The vague sense of bliss lifted and Hermione realized why that feeling seemed so familiar—it was the same as when the Imperious curse was removed. She had not long to ponder this revelation when she felt her dream self rising higher and higher as her mind returned to consciousness.

~*~

She came to by degrees. First she noticed the scent of Harry filled her nostrils as she turned to her side and inhaled deeply into an upholstered cushion. Then she heard how the constant pattering of footsteps back and forth behind her stilled. Finally she heard her name being spoken in an anxious question.

“Harry,” she replied groggily, her brown eyes snapping open. There was a sense of urgency, something important that she needed to tell him straightaway before it slipped from her memory. But what? The two voices from her dream had waged a war over her recollection of past events—how did it really happen? Which voice should she believe? She thought she knew…

Harry grasped her hand firmly in his. “I’m here, Hermione. What happened?” he asked as his concerned face swam into view. Behind him, Hermione could make out the fiery red hair of Ron.

She squeezed his hand as if to delay his questions for the time. “Harry, listen to me for a second because this is very important. You were right before to notice how odd it was that I changed my mind so extremely about Charlotte. Harry, I think someone is messing with my head, to get me to forget her or to confuse me or something—” Harry sent a panicked glance back toward Ron and opened his mouth to speak. “I’m not crazy, just trust me, okay?”

Harry stared at her for a long moment and then nodded resolutely. “All right, so, someone is messing with your…memory?” he asked uncertainly.

Hermione sighed in relief that he seemed to be following her. “Yes, that’s why the way that I remembered Charlotte and our session together kept changing….like your witness’ testimonies!” she exclaimed as everything seemed to piece together.

There was a pause as her thoughts settled around in her head to make a clear, logical picture of everything. Ron cleared his throat and hesitantly asked, “What made you figure that out now—that your memory was changed?”

She stopped to consider her answer, though she was unsure how to put it into words. “It was…it felt—just now—like the Imperius curse cast on my mind instead of on my body…This voice kept telling me just give in and believe that Charlotte had poisoned herself because of me. Because I couldn’t save her. It wanted me to believe that.”

“Oh, Hermione,” said Harry, his face filled with pity. He thought that she was reacting to what she had overheard him tell Ron about Adam the night before.

She huffed and pulled her hand from his, using it to push herself up and ignoring the light-headedness that made her head swim. She crossed her arms defensively over her chest, forcing herself to calm down and speak rationally to them. She turned slowly to face them and looked them both fully in the face. “This isn’t about Adam. At least not fully. Someone out there—” she threw her arm in the direction of the window as though to highlight her point, “is trying to convince me that my clients are killing themselves because of me. They’re manipulating not only me and my memory but others’ as well. Why else would the testimonies keep changing? Without their evidence and my confirmation that Charlotte was unhappy, there would be no real reason to suspect that she would take her own life. And now I think this someone is trying to do the same thing with Adam.”

Her best friends stared at her in silence. Ron glanced repeatedly at the back of Harry’s head as though trying to divine his thoughts, but Harry never took his eyes off her. A few seconds later he stood up and walked to where she had stood during her tirade. He placed both hands on her upper arms just below her shoulders and said, “I believe you.”

She relaxed against him and looked past him to Ron, who seemed a little shaken. “I was worried for a second that I would have been right all those years in calling you mental,” he said finally and the uneasiness dissolved.

After the brief bout of laughter, Hermione once again turned to Harry. “So I suspect that you’ll be interviewing witnesses today regarding Adam’s case?”

Harry’s smile faded and he looked slightly uncomfortable. He reached up to rub the back of his neck and cleared his throat nervously. “Yeah, but it won’t be the Aurors, it’ll be the MLE. No matter what you say, as far as the Ministry’s concerned, Adam Finnin died by poisoning at his own hand. I’m not sure there’s any contrary evidence at this point.”

Hermione frowned to herself; Harry was right. “But what about Persephone and the other Auror, Doyle? They would certainly think it odd that their witness’ stories were changing?”

“Maybe,” conceded Harry. He paused to consider her line of questioning and, turning to face her once more, offered, “Okay, I’ll take you in with me today and I’ll find some way to sneak you into the interrogation room.”

Hermione’s face broke out into a grin and she suppressed the urge to wrap her arms around him in thanks. His vote of confidence meant more to her than she could say. She understood the risk he was taking involving her in matters that not only were outside of his department but most likely classified as well. And she also knew that he was putting a lot of trust in her after she had been flip-flopping back and forth on her own story. “Thank you, Harry,” she said sincerely. “I’m sorry if I frightened you both before, I think my mind was just trying to sort itself out.”

Her best friends nodded to pledge their support, although Hermione noticed that Harry had begun thinking ahead to the implications of someone performing memory alteration to cover up deaths. If he accepted what Hermione was saying as the truth, then there was someone dangerously powerful out there running free.

~*~

“Agent Potter, are you cleared for entry on this level?” asked a young, greasy-haired Magical Law Enforcement officer in a quavering voice. Hermione, hidden behind Harry under his invisibility cloak, supposed that the young man had never come across The Harry Potter in his entire life.

Harry, probably anxious to distract the officer from the fact that he was sneaking someone into an interrogation room in which he had no jurisdiction, leveled the man with a steely gaze and answered with an affronted air, “Would I be trying to enter if I wasn’t?” Only Hermione could discern from the tenseness of his shoulders that he was nervous about being found out. She felt a rush of affection for him, for believing in her and helping her get to the bottom of whatever was happening.

The MLE officer waved them through, confused at Harry’s answering of his question with another question, which in fact wasn’t an answer at all. The hallway was wide enough for Hermione and Harry to walk side by side but even for all of his status as a top Auror, Hermione did not dare remove the cloak just yet. She took great care not to swing her briefcase too much lest she reveal her shoes unintentionally. She had brought it along in case she needed to take notes on the proceedings of the interview.

Harry had talked to Persephone before the pair arrived at the Ministry and she found out the location of the interrogation for the witnesses pertaining to the ‘Finin case,’ as she had called it. They walked mostly in silence broken only when Harry whispered last minute instructions to her out of the corner of his mouth. They had agreed that he would let her into the little anteroom where MLE officers and sometimes Aurors observed the interrogation proceedings from behind the mirror while he went to apprise Persephone of the situation. Hermione was a little uncomfortable with the idea of being left alone, but she comforted herself with the fact that she was invisible—the worst she could do was accidentally step on someone’s toes.

“Everything will be all right, Hermione,” said Harry reassuringly. She stiffened at his word use, for he had unconsciously echoed the words of the voice in her head. Its owner was responsible for the possible wild goose chase that she was on now. She frowned in puzzlement—who did the voice belong to?

“Okay, through this door,” Harry said, magically unlocking the door to the anteroom. One look inside said that it was empty save the enchanted quill and parchment taking down the goings on within the interrogation room. “Brilliant. Okay, you hang tight here and I’ll just run and find Persephone. All right?” he said, his eyes trained a little to her left.

She reached out and touched his arm. “Thank you, Harry,” she said, gratefully, slipping past him to hide inside the room.

Harry glanced in all directions before shutting the door and jogging the way he had come.

Inside the room, Hermione settled near the opaque end of the mirror to listen in on the interview taking place in the room in front of her. The dialogue of the MLE officer and the witness was magically projected into the anteroom and Hermione inferred by the length of writing on the parchment that the interview had been in progress for some time before her arrival.

The man being interviewed was old and balding, his white hair growing in sparse tufts atop his head. He seemed to be weary of the onslaught of questions. Hermione read over the first part of the parchment and found out that he was a resident of Hogsmeade and, judging by his address, a close neighbor to both Adam and Charlotte.

The Ministry officer paced back and forth across the far side of the white room, stopping once in a while to fire a question. He had the unmistakable behavior of someone new to the job and trying to prove himself. “Mr. O’Connor, you testified last night that Adam Finnin was content in his line of work and appeared to have no grievances which might have led him to take his own life. And just now you say that he never got over the death of his late sister and that he had been experiencing some work-related setbacks.

“Now, it is clear to me that these conditions are mutually exclusive. So, which is in fact, the truth?” the officer demanded.

The old man was not impressed with his questioner’s rough tone. “He was still grieving his sister, young man, and I’ll thank you to not put words in my mouth. Of course Adam was miserable with his life, I even remember him saying that his therapy at St. Mungo’s was a waste of money. And as for that nonsense about contentment and whatnot, it’s just that—nonsense. I never would have said it,” he replied gruffly, settling back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest.

The Auror looked flabbergasted at him. “Would you like for me to read out your testimony for you, sir? I can assure that you did indeed claim that our classification of this case as a suicide is unfounded.” He took a few steps toward the door and Hermione speedily read over the first paragraphs of that parchment before the officer could remove it. She skimmed through the young man’s questions, reading the given answers in depth. Slowly she began to see where the testimony began to deviate. It was true; in the beginning of the interview, the old man expressed his surprise in hearing about the death of his good friend. It then continued to suggest that Adam had been unhappy and unstable for years, especially after he lost the full use of his leg and his business began to decline. The picture became bleaker and bleaker with every new piece of evidence, each answer altering it more and more.

So that confirmed it, little by little, the testimony was changing. Each new moment yielded some new, just-remembered evidence that would sway the case. No one just meeting the witness would doubt the veracity of their statements. It was only seeing it as a whole that Hermione was able to picture the evolution of their story. And now she knew that she was not the only one with a modified memory.

Just then the door from the hallway blasted open. Hermione had just enough time to step back and remove her wand her robes before she heard two voices shouting spells in quick succession. “Accio invisibility cloak! Expelliarmus!”

She watched horror as the cloak and her wand flew away from her into the outstretched arms of a bulky man with a low dark brow and a pretty, petite brunette.

“Persephone!” gasped Hermione in relief. “Did Harry find you? You scared me to—”

“Hermione Granger, you are under arrest for obstruction of justice. Doyle, bind her,” said Persephone in a rough voice that was barely recognizable from the soft lilting tone Hermione was used to.

Hermione stood there motionlessly as the man she now knew to be Doyle moved toward her to put her hands behind her back. When he seized her briefcase and passed it back to Persephone, she was pulled out of her stupor. “Wait a second! Persephone, what the bloody hell is going on?”

A soft look graced the other woman’s face and she looked truly apologetic. “I’m sorry Hermione, but we had a tip. You’re really not supposed to be in here anyway.”

Doyle cast the spell to bind her wrists together and Hermione got a good look at his stern appearance. Words weren’t needed for him to intimidate her. He began to lead her out of the room and the other way from which she had come while Persephone neatly folded and tucked away Hermione’s wand and Harry’s invisibility cloak. Harry.

“Wait! Does Harry know what’s going on? Will he be able to find me?” Hermione asked, digging in her heels to keep from being dragged away.

Doyle gave an extra hard tug and Hermione stumbled after the pair of Aurors. “Oh he’ll know soon enough, I expect,” he replied with a smirk that Persephone did not return.

Hermione felt the cold fingers of dread creeping up her back. If she had had any doubt that there was something deeper going on beneath all of this, it was thoroughly squashed by now. She only hoped that if she focused on what she had learned in the past few hours, her memory wouldn’t be edited further. It was exactly how she knew that it would be.

A/N: So whatcha think?

A/N: Hellooooooo! I hope everyone had a pleasant holiday. I’m slightly ashamed of how long this update has taken, but I’m willing to bet that when I get my wisdom teeth out next week, I will definitely have more time to write—unless of course the medicine leaves me all groggy and/or high. In either case, the writing will probably not be up to standard. Anyway, thanks to all of my lovely reviewers—this one’s for you!

Disclaimer: I own nothing, nada, zilch.

Chapter 8: The Ends of Means

A half hour later sat Hermione alone in a blindingly white interrogation room much like the one she had just been spying on. She supposed she had Persephone to thank for being left alone once Doyle roughly deposited her in the chair and modified the bindings on her wrists so that she was practically shackled to it. But at least she was at liberty to try and think her way out of the mess without distraction, and she was grateful to the female Auror for providing at least that much.

Of course, Hermione had no idea if she were truly alone. She avoided looking to her left where the glass on the wall masqueraded as nothing less innocent than a standard mirror. She took greater care that none of her inward thoughts would inadvertently escape her mouth, for even if no wizard surveyed her from that little anteroom, the enchanted quill would certainly mark down every word she said.

And so she silentlyreflected on the events that had transpired in the past few weeks, hoping that maintaining a steady use of her brain would keep parts of her memory from deteriorating. She had no idea if it was effective and even less how to detect if it wasn’t. She had to focus.

Charlotte Fairclough, upon the death of her beloved husband, seeks psychological help. Her murder is constructed to look like suicide and her friends and neighbors are made to vouch for that.

Adam Finnin, a nearby resident and acquaintance of Charlotte, receives therapy for years before abruptly seeming to take his own life. Again his neighbors can attest to his unhappiness, but only after repeated interrogation.

The stories are changing, but who is weaving the new threads in them? Why were both deaths made to look like they were done by the victim’s own hand? Why were these people made targets? And how did this involve Hermione, other than that the victims were both clients of hers? Why were there more questions than answers?

Hermione was startled from her musings by the squeak of the door as it swung forcefully open from the anteroom. She schooled her face into a detached calm, a disinterest that betrayed neither her fear nor her fervent desire to assess her situation.

The first figure to enter the room was a tall man with thinning locks of light brown hair combed to cover a balding patch and a wide moustache too dark to be of natural coloring. He strode confidently into the room wearing not the scarlet robes of an Auror, but the simple navy ones of the MLE. And though he gave the impression of power and of one Hermione shouldn’t dare lie to, she also felt that he would treat her fairly and honestly. The fear in her gut subsided briefly before flaring up wildly as two figures followed the officer into the room—Persephone and Doyle.

The latter walked in carrying the briefcase he had confiscated during her arrest. He wordlessly set it down on the far end of the table and moved to lean against the wall in the corner across from the door. Though he did not look at her once while he did this, Hermione felt his gaze zoning in on her once he relaxed against the wall. Persephone directed a look of concern and sympathy in her direction but like her Auror counterpart said nothing. Her lips were set in a grim line as she stood silently behind the tall man in is navy robes. Where was Harry?

“Miss Granger, is it?” said the man and Hermione’s eyes snapped to his at attention. She did not reply and he did not need her to; he knew exactly who she was and why she was there. “Of course, no need to ask who you are, I’ve heard a great deal about you,” he continued in a civil tone as though the Aurors weren’t present and he and Hermione were having tea. “Although—” he took a seat in the wooden chair across from hers, “even knowing your age, given all that you’ve done, I always imagined you being older.”

This finally loosened Hermione’s tongue. She replied in a voice hoarse from disuse and nerves, “I get that a lot. I’m regretting the day it doesn’t come up.” She frowned to herself. Those words seemed to flow so easily from her lips as though she had said them before.

The man chuckled good-naturedly at her little joke. “Well, I have always wanted to meet you, although I had hoped for better circumstances.” His jovial manner became professional and serious at once. “Miss Granger, I am Inspector Bradshaw. I believe we both want to get this over and done with as soon as possible, so it would be best if you could cooperate.” He folded his hands in front of him and regarded her reservedly, as though he hadn’t just expressed his desire to make her acquaintance. Doyle scowled at her from his corner.

She nodded silently, returning to her calm detachment, careful that no thought or emotion break through for use against her.

Bradshaw set his lips in a thin line, steeling himself for the interrogation. “Now, first things first, do you know why you’re here, Miss Granger?”

Before she could speak, Doyle stepped boldly forward. “She knows her charge well enough, Bradshaw. Obstruction of justice, as told to her not a half hour ago by none other than Perris here!” he informed the inspector, though he never took his focus off Hermione.

Inspector Brandshaw spun himself in his chair to confirm this with Persephone. She became flustered at the attention, something that surprised Hermione, who was used to the easy and commanding presence Persephone exuded normally. The petite brunette shuffled in her scarlet robes before she answered the questioning look from the MLE officer. “It’s true, we read her the charge and her rights.”

“I see,” was all the inspector said before turning to face Hermione once more. Persephone hid her apologetic look when Doyle’s eyes flashed in her direction. “Doyle,” Bradshaw said sharply, “while I appreciate your assistance in this matter, as you and Agent Perris were the ones who apprehended the suspect, I would like to remind you that the MLE department has jurisdiction over charges of obstruction of justice. Catch all the Dark wizards you want, sir, leave the petty crime to us.”

Doyle surprisingly said nothing to this clear warning and instead returned to his post in the corner.

Hermione cleared her throat and began speaking before the inspector could continue the interview. “Sir, with all due respect, on what grounds were these charges made? And who allegedly tipped off the Aurors to make my arrest?”

Bradshaw frowned. “I wasn’t aware that there was such a tip, Miss Granger, although even so it should not have gone to the Auror depart—”

“The suspect triggered the silent alarm of interrogation room two when she entered without the necessary clearance. It appears that Agent Potter was her escort,” explained Doyle, barely suppressing his smugness that he knew more than the officer that had just lectured him on jurisdiction.

Hermione groaned inwardly. The last thing she needed was for Harry’s reputation to be damaged by her immature foray into investigative work.

“Very well,” replied Bradshaw, lacing his fingers together on the table in front of him and facing Hermione fully. “I hadn’t thought that the alarms would be in place for just the interview of a witness. But that begs the question: what exactly were you doing there, Miss Granger?”

Hermione steeled herself, drawing on her limited deception skills, and said, “I was—” Her mind went blank, what had she been about to say? Her eyes darted to Persephone, whose face was screwed up in a look of concentration as she presumably tried to assist Hermione in her reply. “Just curious,” she recovered.

“Curious?” repeated Bradshaw dubiously.

She was quick to elaborate, anxious to absolve Harry. “I was curious to hear the testimony of a witness in Adam Finnin’s case. I snuck into the room on my own, Harry didn’t even know I was with him. I was under his invisibility cloak.”

“I see,” the officer said again. He looked to his left and Doyle came forward at once, setting Hermione’s briefcase on the table and smartly clicking open the metal clasps. “But why so interested in Adam Finnin’s case?”

“I’m assuming that you’ve examined the contents of my briefcase,” said Hermione calmly. “So you already know that I am—was Mr. Finnin’s counselor. And given recent events, I would say that I am justified in my curiosity as to why my clients seem to suddenly be dying. Yes, I was present as that man was interviewed, but I’m at a loss as to how this warrants an obstruction of justice charge, as I was merely observing.” She regarded the MLE officer expectantly.

Instead of answering straightaway, he turned to the two Aurors behind him and offered a polite invitation for a conference outside in a tone that brooked no argument. Once again Hermione was left alone to try and garner her situation from the whispered conversation that drifted through the crack between the door and its frame.

“I thought you said that you saw her in possession of the recording parchment,” Bradshaw was saying, his frustration very apparent.

“Doyle was a tad hasty in saying that, Bradshaw, we couldn’t see anything at all. Miss Granger was hidden underneath an invisibility cloak,” came Persephone’s voice, its character once more returned to its normal state of poise.

Silence, then, “I see. Well then, we have nothing against Miss Granger without that evidence.” Hermione could almost see Bradshaw glaring at the pair of Aurors. “I’m going to have to send her home,” he continued, his voice getting louder as the trio re-entered the room.

The officer’s face was an expression of annoyance at his wasted time. “Well, Miss Granger, it seems we have been mistaken in our accusations. I hope that you will accept our apologies on behalf of the Ministry and the Magical Law Enforcement Department,” he said sincerely.

Hermione’s heart leapt at his words—freedom! But he wasn’t finished. “I must, however, issue you a formal warning for trespassing without proper clearance. That goes for you and Agent Potter as well. Unfortunately, I do not have the parchment you will both have to sign, so I will have to run and fetch it,” he said as he headed once more toward the door.

“I’ll go get Harry,” Persephone volunteered. Bradshaw nodded and left without another word. Persephone turned at once to Hermione and said feelingly, “Hermione, I’m terribly sorry about all this. I’ll just go get Harry, I can’t figure out why he’s not here already! I tried to help, but I’m afraid I just made it worse.”

Hermione smiled, magnanimous in her relief to finally being on her way home. Why was she skulking around the Ministry building under Harry’s invisibility cloak anyway? “It’s all right, it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?”

“It’s not your job to help suspects escape from their punishments, Perris,” said Doyle gruffly, having said nothing since his initial outburst.

Persephone regarded him coolly. “We’ll talk about this later, Doyle,” she told him curtly, flashing Hermione a tight-lipped smile as she headed out the door.

Hermione and Doyle remained silent while the sound of Persephone’s quick footsteps retreated. Hermione’s discomfort grew when Doyle’s hand delved into his robe to retrieve his wand. She doubted there was much he could get away with within Ministry confines, but she still felt uneasy knowing that her own wand was also somewhere within the folds of his robes. There was not much need for her to further develop her wandless magic once the war ended, so Hermione wasn’t sure she could even summon her wand if it came to that.

The Auror flicked his wand forcefully toward the false mirror. “Quill off,” he commanded with some tone of authority. Hermione’s eye grew wide with the thought that no one and nothing was supervising her little interview anymore. And her hands were still bound. Why couldn’t Persephone hurry up?

“You can’t hold me forever, you know,” she said through clenched teeth, oddly astounded and unsurprised by the brooding Auror’s behavior. “I also fail to see the need for keeping my hands bounded to my chair,” she added with more confidence than she felt.

He grinned back at her a grin of triumph, daring her to test whether his word was good. “No, but I can hold you long enough.” He said nothing of her bindings.

She did not doubt him, and she would be lying if she said that she wasn’t suddenly very afraid. But she was no damsel in distress; she had been through worse than this. Her eyes narrowed in a forced show of anger to hide the fact that her hands were gripped in fists so tightly that she was sure there would be permanent half-moon indentations from her fingernails. “What do you mean?” she demanded, a quavering note sneaking into her voice.

Doyle’s smirk grew smug. “I’m very sure a woman of your great learning can grasp the concept—did you ever pause to consider that perhaps a charge of obstruction of justice was just a preamble to an even greater charge?”

The fear was rising up in her throat now, its metallic taste choking her tongue so that her speech was slightly slurred. “And what charge would that be?”

She jumped as Doyle’s hand flashed high in the air before dramatically beating down on the leather surface of her briefcase. “Now now, Miss Granger, ignorance does not become you! We both know you did it!”

Hermione was growing impatient. “Did what?”

“You murdered Charlotte Fairclough and Adam Finnin!” he bellowed without missing a beat, his solid fist beating the table to punctuate every word.

She gasped in the great silence that followed Doyle’s outburst. Finding her voice at last, she drew on the last shred of courage in her power, and said in a clear voice, “I thought the Ministry’s official stance was that these were victims of suicide.”

He stared at her for a moment, surprised at her abrupt calm. “You and I both know that they were murdered,” he said in a deadly tone. “And don’t even think of using Potter to get you out of this either.”

Rolling her eyes at the predictable threat. “What do you have against Harry anyway?” she asked in a tone that showed her irritation.

To her surprise, Doyle actually seemed to consider the question. “I’ve got nothing against him, just people who use their well-placed connections to get them out of trouble. And now Perris seems to have joined you little fan club,” he remarked acidly.

“Well, rest assured that I don’t need him to do that, as I am innocent,” she said, spitting the words out.

Hermione internally agreed that her former clients were murdered but wasn’t sure if she should say nothing or share what she knew in case he could help her. But admitting what she knew to her accuser…what she knew? What did she know?

A sense of panic completely unrelated to the intimidation of the Auror in front of her began to overtake her. Her mind, once crowded with worries and doubts, slowly began to empty and she felt momentarily peaceful in their absence. There was a small niggling thought that she was forgetting something and that this something was important, but she was having difficulty making her mind process it. Don’t fight it, she heard the familiar but unnamed voice say sotto voce, for her alone.

“What were you doing eavesdropping on a confidential witness testimony?” broke Doyle’s voice through her thoughts.

Her eyes focused back on his looming form as he leaned toward her on the table. The blankness in her mind stretched…she didn’t know why she had been there. She looked up at him, lost, and felt a creeping pain pound behind her forehead.

“Why are you interfering with witness testimonies?”

Her head snapped up. Something about testimonies being changed—that’s what she had to remember. The pain worsened and she let out a groan that Doyle mistook for weakness. He plodded on, question after question, probably hoping to wear her down into giving up information.

“How are you doing it? Imperius? Memory charms? Bribery?” he demanded eagerly until she longed for her hands to be free just so she could cover her ears against his rough voice.

“I don’t know!” she shrieked at last.

Doyle leaped at her cry like it was a confession. “You don’t know? Is this an admission of guilt?”

“Does it sound like one?” she snapped rhetorically. What was taking Harry so long to get here?

He flipped open her briefcase and threw some familiar in her direction. “Then why are you carrying these?”

She barely had to glance at the disordered stack of worn parchment to know that they were Adam’s files. With a sigh, she replied, “I already told you, I’m Adam’s counselor. I—” she broke off. There was something scribbled in one of the margins. She had to lean forward to make it out. MEMORY.

She gasped again, this time as a barrage of images and thoughts flickered in her mind’s eye: meeting Charlotte, waving a cheery goodbye, the man in the interrogation room, the recording parchment, odd looks from her friends as her mind flip flopped in indecision, the wood grain of her desk where a personal parchment should be, enveloping darkness.

She remembered it all! MEMORY.

All of a sudden, the door burst open and in strode Harry, all billowing scarlet robes and righteous anger. “That’s enough, Doyle.”

“I can’t believe him, I just can’t!” Harry said for the third time later that afternoon.

“Harry, calm down,” Hermione said, placing a hand on his arm as they exited the Ministry building. They both had to sign official affidavits outlining their offense and their accompanying confession. Luckily for them there was no actual punishment for trespassing—but it would go on whatever kind of permanent record the Ministry kept for each witch or wizard. “Besides,” she continued with a glance around to check for eavesdroppers, “we found out what we needed to: the witnesses are changing testimony and the Aurors and MLE officers are starting to notice.”

Harry pursed his lips as he listened. “You’re right, we got what we came for.”

She squeezed his arm, shifting closer to him as they walked down the crowded London sidewalk. The sun had set and commuters were on their way from work; it would be difficult to get a cab. “I’m sorry I got you into trouble though,” she apologized.

He shrugged. “S’no big deal, if I didn’t think the risk was worth it to learn more, I wouldn’t have brought you in there. I’m just sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”

“Yeah, what took you so long?” she asked. She noticed that her hand was still on his arm and pulled it back to her side with a faint blush.

He didn’t seem to notice. “I have no idea. I was in my office trying to find my communicator so that I could call Persephone but I couldn’t remember where I put it, and then there she was telling me you had been arrested and that I had to come straightaway—are we gonna tube it or do you want to Apparate?” he answered, pausing at the entrance to the Underground.

It was Hermione’s turn to purse her lips, though she wasn’t exactly considering their transportation options. “And did you end up finding it, your communicator?” she asked.

He laughed. “Yeah, that was the weird thing, it was in my pocket the entire time. I must have forgotten—” he broke off and met her wide eyes. She knew that he had realized the possible implications of his sudden bout of absent-mindedness.

“Yeah, I forgot again too,” she said quickly. “Look, we need to figure this out. Meet you at home—” The faint pop of her Apparation cut off her last word and left a thoroughly confused behind her.

She arrived in the darkness of her living room, cursing as she bumped her shin against the coffee table. There was a quiet rustling in the kitchen and the light was already on. “Who’s that?” she asked, knowing it couldn’t be Harry for he had yet to arrive.

“Just me!” came the rich baritone of Ron’s voice.

A slight pop to her right announced the presence of Harry. “Hermione,” he started immediately, “what do you mean, you forgot again? I thought—what was that?” He looked toward the kitchen as Hermione flicked on the light switch for the living room.

“It’s just Ron,” she answered, heading for the source of the rustling and discovering that it was just the contents of her and Harry’s refrigerator as Ron perused for a pre-dinner snack. “And he’s stealing our food again!” She gave Harry a look that promised to continue their conversation later.

“Snitch,” said Ron, poking his head out from behind the refrigerator door. “This is just to tide me over until dinner in…an hour.”

Hermione sunk into one of the stools at the counter. “Well, so glad we could accommodate you and your wondrous appetite,” she said sarcastically but with a smile. She began going through the owl post from the basket by the window. “Just what I thought, no reprimand from work for skiving today. Looks like I’ve pretty much blown it,” she told her friends dejectedly.

“Rotten luck, mate,” said Ron lightly in that affectedly blasé way that Hermione supposed he used so as not to disprove her opinion of his emotional range. She sensed that there was more to her red-headed best friend than he let on. He patted her twice on the back as he passed en route to the kitchen table. Harry took the stool next to her and they spun so that they could keep talking to Ron.

“Yeah, well, that’s nothing compared to the day we’ve had,” said Hermione, just starting to feel the effects of exhaustion. She pinched the bridge of her nose and pretended not to feel the concerned look Harry was giving her.

Ron was looking back and forth between them trying to hide his mischievous smirk at Harry’s poorly hidden glance and her creeping blush. “That bad, huh?” he asked, digging in to his snack and masking his amusement with polite interest.

Harry looked away from her to answer Ron’s question in a simple but accurate synopsis of the day’s events. “Yeah, that bad. Tried to sneak Hermione into one of the interrogation rooms in the Magical Law Enforcement department and accidentally tripped one of the security alarms. Next thing we know is that Hermione’s been arrested for obstruction of justice and I’m stuck wandering my office searching for my partner like an idiot.”

Hermione instantly reached over to quell his harsh self-abasement. “You’re not an idiot, Harry, if anyone’s an idiot it’s me, since I practically threw you to wolves by being with you at all.”

Harry shrugged as he had earlier. “I told you, it’s not a big deal. The worse I’ll get is an equivalent of a Hogwarts detention.” Hermione pursed her lips in an unsure smile, grateful that he did not seem to be terribly upset by a possible departmental reprimand.

“Never mind all the gushy apologies, what is this about you getting arrested?” demanded Ron, completely thrown by the events.

Hermione heaved a great sigh and gritted out the words. “Trumped up charges of obstruction of justice—they thought that I was making modifications to the recording parchment of the interrogation that I was listening in on. But according to your Doyle,” said with a significant glance toward Harry, “it was just a farce to hold me while they gathered evidence for a charge of murder. Double homicide.”

“What!?” said Harry and Ron together, their mouths agape. It would have been comical had the situation not been so grave.

“Doyle was insinuating that I was behind the deaths of Adam and Charlotte. That I held the gun so to speak,” she explained. Ron’s gape turned to confusion. “Muggle phrase,” she said dismissively.

Harry’s eyebrows were knit in calculation. “So now they’re treating the deaths as homicides. Why didn’t I know about this?” he wondered.

Hermione shrugged, looking apologetically at him again. “Yeah, but it was just Doyle who said it, so I don’t know if it’s the official position of either department or whatever. Maybe they didn’t tell you because they thought that you already had too much of a vested interest in this.” She did not have to add “because of me” to the end.

He said nothing but made noncommittal noises through closed lips. She longed to take his hand, anything to show him the comfort that she too needed, but she held back just as she had so many times before.

“Hang on, did both of them die by poison?” Ron asked seriously, breaking her from her reverie. He had a look of concentration on his face that she hadn’t seen perhaps since the horcrux hunt. She looked to Harry for the answer, realizing that she didn’t know about Adam.

He nodded as though he didn’t exactly follow Ron’s train of thought. “Hemlock, the both of them,” he added.

She felt her own frown lift as she considered the strange similarity. “Death by hemlock,” she repeated in wonder.

“And both your patients,” said Harry, catching on to the emerging pattern.

“Clients,” she corrected automatically, though she nodded in confirmation. “Victims of war and loss, residents of Hogsmeade, my clients, deaths made to look like suicides, framing me,” she continued, counting the facts on her fingers as he voice lifted in question at the last one.

Her thoughts roamed in endless circles through her head. There were all these strange likenesses between her late clients, and the buzzword of the moment seemed to be “hemlock.” Her head came up sharply to meet the inquisitive eyes of her best friends. “What do you know about hemlock?” she asked the room at large.

Harry shrugged.

“It’s a poison containing a neurotoxin which disrupts the workings of the central nervous system and is toxic to people and all classes of livestock. Its effects consist of paralysis, loss of speech, depression of respiratory functions, and…death,” said Ron in an oddly mechanical voice as though he had swallowed a textbook with the information in it.

In other words, he sounded almost exactly like Hermione did when she regurgitated facts from a book she had read. She and Harry regarded him with no small measure of surprise. “Where did you pick that up?” she asked.

He seemed almost as surprised as she did. “Fred and George,” he explained. “They wanted to use hemlock as an ingredient in one of their jokes.”

She thought back to the stores of the poison she had seen in the unlocked cupboards of the St. Mungo’s storeroom—and Mark’s justification for its presence. “I suppose it could be used as a sedative in small doses,” she allowed. “But with enough it could lead to death, like you said, Ron.”

Harry spoke at once the conclusion that she had reached. “So we know that whoever killed Charlotte and Adam had access to large quantities of hemlock.”

“St. Mungo’s,” confirmed Hermione, as Ron once again observed his friends’ ability to predict each other’s thoughts. She stared sightlessly at the wood floor, reviewing the rows of hemlock solution that she had seen with her own eyes under the guard of her friend, Mark Bonner.

Mark—her thoughts kept returning to him. He had access to the poison, and a working knowledge of the Knockturn Alley market for it. She was reluctant to voice her fears, that Mark was somehow connected to the deaths of her clients, but concluded that if she couldn’t speek freely in front of her best friends, then she would have to remain silent. And she didn’t have time for silence.

“I’ve seen where they keep the hemlock,” she started in a quiet voice. “Mark is supposed to lock the key to the place that it’s stored, but he always forgets.” She continued outlining her logic, trying to make her friends understand what she was saying without having to make an actual accusation.

“So you think it’s Mark?” asked Harry uncertainly.

She shrugged, not happy with the way the evidence seemed to be pointing. “I don’t know, it was an idea,” she said, less sure than she had been. This was Mark.

“Mark, I’m-in-love-with-Hermione-and-would-gladly-have-her-babies Mark?” said Ron dubiously, the humor behind his words lost in the tone of accusation. “That’s a bit of a stretch.”

She nodded half-heartedly, feeling drained and out of ideas. Deep down she knew it couldn’t be Mark, it just couldn’t. She dropped her head into her hands, rubbing her tired eyes until she saw stars and reminding herself that it was still just afternoon.

“Besides, we don’t have motive,” said Harry, invoking his Auror experience.

“Unless he’s hacked off at you for turning him down,” teased Ron.

She did not have too little strength to keep her from glaring at Ron’s poorly timed jest. “You’re right,” she conceded, “I’m grasping at straws here. It’s all a bit overwhelming, I feel like I’m missing some crucial bit of information.”

“Not to mention the fact that someone is making you go mental,” Ron pointed out rationally.

Hermione and Harry turned to him and then each other simultaneously. “And now you,” she said to Harry, ignoring Ron’s usual jibe at her sanity.

His eyes were fixed on the countertop beside him. “And you have no idea what’s causing it?” he asked, his eyes still screwed up in concentration as all three of them struggled to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Hermione huffed helplessly. “No, and I haven’t been able to give it much thought. For a while there it seemed to not be an issue.” She was of course referring to the time when her mind had been addled to the point of easy acceptance of Charlotte’s suicide, when she had dismissed her notes on memory alteration as the result of too much over-analyzing.

“But you’ve still got them, haven’t you?” Ron said, probably unable to imagine Hermione ever throwing away something of such importance.

She thought back to where they would be if the notes still existed. “I think so, but I’ll have to search for them.” She made a mental list of places to check before she forgot, or before it was made to slip her mind. Her shudder of dread went unnoticed by either of her two friends, as Ron had just begun talking.

“We could ask Ginny if she knows anything about a charm or spell that could create the kind of effects you’re talking about,” he suggested, his finger absently scratching his chin as his gaze slid to somewhere far away.

At once Hermione’s mood cleared. “That’s brilliant, Ron!” she exclaimed, all business again. She hopped off her stool and began to pace the kitchen, missing the apprehensive look the boys shared. “So Ron can ask Ginny and I’ll check over potions again and see what there is,” she said to herself. Turning to the other two, she continued briskly, “In the meantime we must devise a way to keep us from forgetting everything we’ve learned so far.”

Harry and Ron glanced at each other and then back to Hermione, at a loss. She felt a strange sense of déjà vu—how many times had they looked to her for the answer in all their years of friendship? Thinking back to what had helped her to remember before when she was being interrogated, she gave a cry of triumph and quickly snatched the marker sitting beside the telephone. Carefully she jotted one word, MEMORY, in the same spiky capitals she had written on Adam’s case file, on her left hand so that it was clearly visible.

She looked up to find Harry and Ron regarding her with raised eyebrows. “What?” she said defensively.

“That’s how you’re going to keep your memory?” Ron asked incredulously. Clearly he had been expecting something worthier of her title as the brightest witch of the age.

“Yes,” she replied with dignity. “Anyone would be hard-pressed to remove permanent marker from skin-- with or without magic. And besides, what we need,” she continued, now directing her explanation to Harry, “is a trigger word, something that will jog your memory. If that’s done, everything comes flooding back in the way that you originally remembered it.”

Harry’s face broke out into a smile. “Brilliant,” he breathed with a smile of pride. She blushed at the compliment, forcing herself to remember that he only thought of her as a best friend, and busied herself removing and replacing the cap of the marker.

“Well, aren’t you going to write it on Harry too?” Ron asked innocently. Hermione glared daggers at him for a moment without Harry seeing—he too was considering Ron with an odd expression on his face—before she boldly reached forward and quickly scribbled the same word on Harry’s hand.

Ron was looking at the both of them with a smug satisfaction, failing to hide his amusement of Hermione’s discomfort. “Now the only problem is remembering what the significance of the word MEMORY is in the first place,” he said, and Hermione and Harry’s gazes met in a matching stricken expression. Neither of them had thought of that.

“Let’s hope that it doesn’t come to that,” said Hermione with a forced optimism that died in her throat.

Suddenly the clock chimed the hour that Ron was due to leave. Gathering his few belongings, Ron let Hermione and Harry walk him to the door.

“Try not to worry too much, Hermione, though I know you can’t help it,” Ron said bracingly with a hint of chuckle. “I’ll be by first thing tomorrow,” he said to Harry as he went to shut the door behind Ron.

“Are you all right?” Harry asked quietly after the door clicked shut behind their red-headed best friend.

“You know, you don’t have to keep asking that, Harry, I’ll let you know when I’m not all right,” she answered half-jokingly.

Harry feigned a wistful sigh, sliding onto the living room couch and beckoning Hermione to join him. “If only the female mind really operated like that. It would make women a lot easier for at least me and Ron to understand.”

“Eh, I think Ron’s doing all right with Luna,” allowed Hermione. She paused to consider and then went on with a laughing tone, “In fact, he may be the only person who understands Luna.”

“True,” laughed Harry. The pair slipped into a companionable silence.

“He seems happy though, doesn’t he?” Hermione asked, continuing their conversation.

“Yeah,” agreed Harry with a trace of something wistful in his tone.

She glanced at him curiously. Even later she would not know what had possessed her to ask. All at once the words were out of her mouth and out in the open before she could even contrive a way to take them back. “Are you happy?”

He turned to her in some surprise and seemed to actually reflect on her question. “I don’t think anyone has asked me that. Ever,” he replied as though her question had provoked some thought.

“You didn’t answer my question, Harry,” she persisted. She had a strange feeling that to pursue this line of thought would bring them to the brink of something vague and undefined; she was simultaneously thrilled and terrified at the prospect. Nothing else but the unknown could invoke these feelings in her.

“To be honest, I never thought I’d live long enough to wonder,” Harry said as though far away in his own memories.

“Harry!” she exclaimed in breathless alarm.

He shrugged, still not looking at her. “Sorry, but it’s true.” He said it like it was, a fact.

She reached a hand toward him, for once not thinking of how he might interpret her touch—and consequently, her feelings for him—but about the comfort of her best friend, as she had done countless times in the same past that he was still stuck in. “Well, you’re here and alive now, so what do you think?”

He finally met her gaze, his eyes brimming with the same unknown that she felt them approach with each quickened heartbeat.

He opened his mouth to speak and Hermione was sure that whatever came out would change everything. “I think… I need some coffee,” he said in a rush, rising from the couch and hastily exiting to the kitchen.

Fighting back a groan at the lost moment, Hermione internally berated herself for scaring her friend off with her intense gaze and loaded questions. Why couldn’t she keep her mouth shut? She sank deeper into the cushions; she would never have the courage to just tell Harry the truth about how she felt about him. She could see it clearly: they would dance around each other for a few days, she would swallow her feelings and push them out of sight, their friendship would be maintained, and everyone would be happy. Bloody hell, how bleak, the Ron-like part of her conscience screamed inside her head.

She rose from the couch, a fresh determination swelling within her. A sudden death would not accompany her telling Harry that she desired more than friendship from him, and she died a little each day that she kept it all to herself. When it was made, the decision was entirely and utterly simple. As the come-what-may smile spread slowly across her face, Hermione strode across the room and to the kitchen to let her feelings be known once and for all.

Her confident gait faltered when she walked in to see Harry bent at the sink with the tell-tale defeated slump of his shoulders.

She sped over to him at once. “Harry, what’s wrong?” she asked, her momentary assuredness usurped by her friend’s pitiful droop.

“No, Hermione,” he said in an unexpectedly harsh tone. She stiffened and instinctively began to retrace her path. In two bounds he had crossed to her and gathered her in his arms, not seeming to notice that she was still rigid within his embrace. Slowly she relaxed and tentatively placed her arms around his waist, stunned at not only his unusual display of affection but his sudden moodswing. “It’s just so hard,” he said almost too softly for him to hear. If had been holding her any looser, she would have missed it.

“What’s hard?” she asked in some considerable confusion.

“You’re the most important person to me, Hermione, you and our friendship,” he stated with more passion than she had heard from him in years. He released his hold on her and she reluctantly pulled back from his arms. He was staring at her with that same unreadable look, his eyes wandering warmly over her face. Her pulse raced at his uncharacteristically ardent gaze. He took a deep breath as though to ready himself and said, “It’s hard to know that every day I risk it just in the way that I feel about you.”

What? “Way you feel about me?” she echoed dumbly. Her mouth had gone dry at the implication of his words. Could it be that he felt the same?

His hands reached up to cup her face as she struggled through her stupor. “I’ve tried everything: ignoring it, dating other witches, taking more assignments. But I can’t stand to be away from you. You, Hermione, you’re my happiness. Our friendship is not just mine to risk—”

Finally she got a grip on her composure, at least enough to comprehend that this man—her best friend, her first friend—was declaring himself to her. Quickly and before she really had time to consider her actions, she stood on her toes and cut him off. His lips lingered motionlessly against hers for what felt like ages before they softened and returned her kiss.

“What was that?” Harry said a little dazedly a moment later.

“A kiss,” she said simply, strangely devoid of any embarrassment at her impulsive behavior. “I thought I’d put you out of your misery. Everything you said was true for me too, tenfold.”

His uncertain grin faded and he regarded her seriously. “We can’t go back once we go forward,” he said with the same breathlessness that she had had earlier.

There was no need for a pause to consider. She reached her arms around his neck and marveled at the close contact. “I’m willing to risk it,” was her reply, and the last words that would be spoken that evening.

With a grin that brought new illumination to his green eyes, Harry leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. Hours later she would finally be able to confirm that the ends had justified the means.

A/N: Longer chapter than I projected. What do you think?

A/N: Hellllooo! I’m assuming you all enjoyed the last chapter (or rather, the end of it), and there’s sort of more where that came from here. I’m sure you’re tired of hearing me complain about my inability to write good fluff, so I’ll not mention it again. And without further ado, the next chapter!

Disclaimer: I don’t even own a little tiny bit of Harry Potter. Not even a tiny bit. L

Chapter 9~Missing Dates and Dinner Dates

Just as she had when she was a little girl, snug in her bed at her parents’ Oxford house, not yet knowing she was a witch but merely that she was clever for her age, Hermione woke in time to greet the dawn. Morning had arrived and with it a sense that even with everything horrible that ha come about recently, there was still a potential for things to turn out all right. Sure, she had probably lost her job in the department she had helped create before her twenty-first birthday, and two suspicious murdered appeared to be mysteriously linked to her, but a slight rustling of bed sheets and sagging mattress at her side somehow managed to quell her worries.

“Hi,” said the best friend that she had harbored more than platonic feelings for since before the Second War. He smiled lazily at her turning toward her on his side and blinking at her myopically.

Hermione found herself smiling back at his boyish appearance—his black hair sticking out at odd angles as if to defy all attempts of forced submission, his goofy grin with just the same hint of mischief as in their school days—and its stark contrast to his otherwise manly physique and particular involvement in their more than platonic activities the previous evening.

She couldn’t help but marvel at how, despite the many times they had slept together (in the literal sense of the word) every morning-after had been filled with the sort of awkwardness that forced them to display those conversation skills honed by years of friendship. Yet this time, when perhaps it should have been awkward given the things they had done and said to each other for the first time, waking up beside him and finding that the best thing that had happened to her in a long time was not a dream, or worse, a tampered-with memory. Even yet another reminder from her conscience couldn’t smother her good spirits that first morning she woke up with Harry.

“Hi, yourself,” she returned, feeling more light-hearted than she had in years.

A comfortable silence descended as the pair regarded each other with mingled feelings of elation and fear. Years of little moments that brought Hermione and Harry to where they were that morning suddenly came into sharp focus—crimson blushes, glances that lasted a fraction of a second too long, boyfriends and girlfriends not quite up to standard, simple domestic acts designed to bring them into close proximity without fear of outside reproach. It seemed like they had been gravitating closer to that point for so long that they had been fools to not notice. If she hadn’t been so deliriously happy with the outcome anyway, she would have given her forehead a hearty smack.

Harry broke the stare, rolling onto his back but holding his arm out in silent invitation for her to snuggle into his side. They released breaths simultaneously as they settled further under the covers. There was a lot to discuss, but Hermione squeezed her eyes shut in the same childish belief that if her eyes were closed then her troubles couldn’t see or be seen. She couldn’t help but grieve for her friendship with Harry; she had a feeling that a relationship with him wouldn’t necessarily be a simple shift from friends to lovers, but more of a rebuilding of them as a unit, from the ground up.

“We should talk about it,” she finally said, though she would have postponed the moment for as long as possible if she could.

Harry seemed to sense that or he happened to feel the same because his answer to had a hint of reluctance. “You’re right, as usual.”

Neither said another word, but Hermione’s thoughts were running a mile a minute. She knew how she felt about Harry and she had an idea of how he felt about her, but things were said and done so quickly and without thought the night before that she had no clue where they stood together.

She flopped onto her stomach and began talking earnestly to her bed partner. “Honestly, we’re two sensible adults. We should be able to discuss last night and everything without any problems.”

Harry nodded, appearing a little relieved that at least Hermione’s bossy nature was a constant in the matter. “We should,” he agreed. “Where should we start?”

“Well, for one thing, was what you said last night true?” she asked, worrying the top sheet with her fingers and avoiding his gaze. This was the thousand-galleon question, was he going to take everything back now, or call it a mistake?

With every new second of silence, Hermione could feel her heart sinking deeper into her chest. Was he going to make some excuse to leave? Would he try to pretend it didn’t happen or that it didn’t mean anything? That’s ridiculous, she chastised herself, still not looking at him, this is HARRY. Harry would never do that to her.

His insistent voice broke through her worries. “Hermione, look at me,” he said. When she still couldn’t bring herself to face him fully, he raised the hand that wasn’t partially trapped beneath her and tilted her chin up so that she had no choice but to meet his gaze. “Hermione, nothing would ever make me lie to you. I meant what I said last night with every part of my being.”

A sigh of relief escaped her only to be replaced with unbearable curiosity. “For how long?” she asked, not needing to elaborate.

Harry pretended to count on his fingers. “Since about the time you and Ron broke up, actually. While I don’t recall the exact moment, I do remember how I felt when you and Ron first got together.”

“Oh?” said a rather nonplussed Hermione. Her relationship with Ron was so brief and long ago, sometimes it slipped her mind entirely.

Harry was laughing as he continued speaking. “Yeah, I thought that the dread I felt was just the usual fear of being displaced or forgotten if you guys were doing well, or the go-between if you weren’t. It took me those few months to realize that I was really just scared to death that I would lose my chance with you.”

Hermione was struggling to take it all in. Before she knew it, she had begun replying. “For almost all of those years at Hogwarts, I believed that although there were innumerable dangers out there in the real world, I, Hermione Granger, was still untouchable. The worst that I could do is get myself expelled.

“Gradually I realized that even knowing all of the spells in the wizarding world didn’t make me immortal. The skill of quick-thinking didn’t help in those situations where blind panic took over,” she said with a sardonic chuckle.

Harry remained silent, sensing that she hadn’t yet reached her point.

“With the thing in the Department of Mysteries and then Dumbledore’s death, I finally stopped thinking in terms of the future, because there might not be one. I let myself think of you for the first time as something other than a best friend, the boyfriend of one of the only girls I’d ever befriended. And I knew: I was in love with you.

“For a while Ginny was my excuse for not telling you, and then the war, and then Ron seemed to finally notice me and I thought that at least he’d been with me through everything too. He’d understand me.” She trailed off, hardly knowing what she had said.

“But he didn’t,” said Harry.

Hermione looked over him, staring into his green eyes and he gazed at her compassionately. “No, he didn’t,” she agreed.

“And then after Ron?” he asked, smoothing hair out of her face with the well-practice ease of someone who had been doing it for years.

“After Ron, it just never seemed like the right time. And I never thought I was good enough for you,” she admitted quietly.

Harry sat up at once. “What are you talking about?” he asked, genuinely confused by her admission.

“Oh, come off it, Harry,” she replied impatiently, not comfortable with getting into the particulars of her insecurities. “You are the Boy Who Lived, the Savior of the Wizarding World, the Chosen One—you have a thousand titles. Who would notice Harry Potter’s plain best friend who hasn’t the danger of the Auror lifestyle or the glamour of professional Quidditch? I’ll tell you who: no one.” She stared at her fingers as they went to work unraveling a stray thread on her bedspread, worrying that she had said too much or the wrong thing. When Harry had remained silent for too long for her to bear, she glanced up and caught him staring at her with something close to wonder.

“How could you ever…Hermione, you are ten times the person I am!” he declared passionately. Hermione jumped and reddened at his exclamation, the beginnings of a smile forming on her face. “And those titles are just that—titles. They don’t say anything about who I really am, and especially after all that we’ve been through together, you should know that it’s you that’s too good for me.”

Hermione’s face shot up eager to dispute this claim. She opened her mouth to do so when the reality of the situation sunk in—whether either wizard was “good enough” for the other was moot; they were together now and they had already wasted too much time getting to that point. Instead of replying, Hermione brought her lips down to Harry’s in a searing kiss that required no words to communicate what she was feeling.

Harry’s hands were everywhere, her hands were everywhere. These weren’t the lazy kisses of a Sunday morning, but the product of years of pent up energy and forbidden feelings. She wanted to fall into him, anything to bring him closer. Overnight she had developed an unmistakably greedy desire—a deadly sin for certain, because if she wasn’t dying or in heaven already, she wasn’t sure what was happening—for Harry, and there was apparently only one cure: more.

Their kiss slowed naturally from one of utter passion to the kind of languishing embrace where it wasn’t the sensations aroused but the meaning behind them that was of the utmost importance, the kind of kiss that heretofore only existed in the land of fiction. It was at the point of almost no movement between her and Harry that Hermione felt a hard pinch right on her bum.

“Harry!” she exclaimed in bewilderment, pullng upright and directing her shocked expression to his face. “You pinched my bum,” she said, stating the obvious.

He shrugged innocently. “I had to make sure I wasn’t dreaming,” he explained as though it were natural for them to make that kind of contact.

Hermione’s shock morphed instantly into mock annoyance. “You’re supposed to pinch yourself to make that distinction,” was her retort.

His ability to maintain his blameless expression was impressive, Hermione conceded, but eventually the pair burst into laughter moments later when Hermione’s seemingly stern exterior flickered and died. Hermione felt as though with just their laughter, she and Harry had created some kind of haven where she was safe from having to think about anything that troubled her. That bubble abruptly popped when they were interrupted by the sound of Persephone’s voice, calling for Harry urgently from the living room floo.

“Potter! Agent Potter! There’s been another one—a code 187!”

Hermione and Harry looked back from the bedroom door at each other, their faces reflecting both disappointment at the abrupt end to their first morning together and anxiety at the stress in Persephone’s normally calm voice.

“What’s a code 187?” asked Hermione as they simultaneously sprang from her bed and began to retrieve their discarded clothing.

“Murder,” answered Harry grimly before giving her a chaste kiss on the lips and hurrying to answer the call of his partner. Before he touched the doorknob, he turned back to her and said, “You should probably come too. It sounds like Persephone thinks this situation is related to the other two.” Hermione nodded, noticing that he didn’t name specifics; he was already in Auror mode. “Just give me a second to make sure Persephone is fine with declassifying this.”

Without another word, he dashed out the door, leaving Hermione standing in a loosely tied dressing gown, hopelessly avoiding the dread that plagued at her mind: Who’s next?

She steeled her shoulders and reached for the door handle, judging that she had given Harry sufficient time to get Persephone’s approval to disclose this new development. When her steps brought her around the corner of the hall and into the living room, Persephone had clearly been instructed to wait for her arrival and looked positively fit to burst.

Harry’s face relaxed slightly at Hermione’s entrance and he turned toward his partner. “Okay, so what happened?”

For how keen she seemed to tell all a moment before, now that she had both Harry and Hermione before her, all the air seemed to have gone out of her. With her gaze leveled grimly at the sleepy pair, Persephone said, “Perhaps you ought to see for yourself. Potter, I’ll have someone activate your portkey. But be prepared, Hermione. It’s Mark.”

Hermione’s hand flew to her mouth but no sound escaped. Harry came instantly out of Auror mode as Persephone’s head disappeared from the flames and Hermione felt behind her for the couch. She sank onto it in silence, feeling Harry’s arms wrap around her but strangely thinking almost nothing.

Mark Bonner, young, charming, wonderdul Mark? Recipient of the Order of Merlin, Second Class, and one of her closest friends, dead? No, not dead, she thought savagely, murdered. Suddenly she stood up, inadvertently slipping from Harry’s grasp.

“Hermione, wha—” he gasped.

She turned back toward him. “Harry, do you have the portkey?” she asked urgently.

Harry frowned at her abrupt moodswing. “Er, yeah, why?”

She sat back down beside him, taking a firm hold on his arm. “We have to go.”

Wordlessly they argued, as they had so many times in the past, knowing that although things had shifted in their relationship, some things would always stay the same. Harry would have to trust that she knew what she was doing.

“Are you sure?” he asked, already anticipating what she was going to say.

“Yes,” she replied immediately. “I have to know.”

Harry sighed and stood up, offering his hand to help her. “Fine, but we’re taking the invisibility cloak.”

Not five minutes later, Hermione was accompanying Harry up the walk of Mark’s building. Hermione noticed several Aurors dressed as Muggles loitering around the ground floor and outside of the building to keep an eye on things. One of them gave a subtle nod at Harry, who returned it and opened the front door as though he owned the place, carefully leaving enough room for the trailing Hermione to follow unnoticed.

They wound their way up the staircase silently, up to the fifth floor where Mark’s flat was. Hermione was expecting utter silence in the flat of a dead man, but she was surprised at the bustle of activity by the undercover Aurors. For a moment, Hermione thought she spied the lime green robes of a Healer, but then she became preoccupied with trying to not be trampled. Harry bent down to retrieve something and stood up rigidly when he heard a most unwelcome voice.

“Agent Potter, right on time,” said Doyle in unmistakable sarcasm.

Harry looked a force to be reckoned with. The stony glare he turned on his Auror counterpart would have made many a braver man tremble in fear. “What do you mean, Doyle?” he said, crossing his arms and unconsciously moving to block Hermione.

Doyle sported a rather satisfied grin. “Well, apparently the poison administered to Mr. Bonner did not take full effect before he was discovered. He’s still alive and has been taken to St. Mungo’s.”

Underneath the cloak, Hermione practically beamed in relief. Harry took a step back as though to turn to her but he held himself in check. Doyle raised his eyebrows at Harry’s behavior but said nothing.

Harry was saved from having to make a reply by the arrival of Persephone, looking rumpled from wear but still resplendent in her simple Muggle clothing. She shot an inquiring look at Harry who shifted her gaze imperceptibly to where Hermione was hidden under the cloak.

Rubbing her hands to together good-naturedly as though she and the two Aurors were meeting over lunch, she cheerily announced, “Well, since Potter here was so good as to report so promptly, I will have to brief him on the current situation.” Without another word, she swept from the crowded living room to a door that she opened to reveal a broom cupboard. Harry shot a rather unenthusiastic look toward his partner at her selection for a meeting place, but nonetheless twitched his hand to guide Hermione inside. Persephone followed the pair and shut the door behind her, invoking lumos to light their conversation.

“He’s been taken to St. Mungo’s?” asked Hermione without preamble.

Persephone nodded. “He’s in a secure ward there,” she told them both.

“I should go see if he’s all right!” said Hermione at once, already scrambling to make good on her word.

“No, Hermione, don’t!” Persephone practically shouted. She glanced around furtively for eavesdroppers and lowered her voice so that Hermione had to lean forward to make out her next words. “You’re already considered to be very high on the suspect list, and showing up to visit him when you’re not even supposed to know that he’s ill won’t help you at all.” The warning in her tone was unmistakable and Hermione visibly deflated at the implication that she was once again at risk for a murder—or at least attempted murder.

Harry felt her fear, having experienced that same false suspicion time and time again. “But she has an alibi,” he said hotly, angered on her behalf.

Persephone’s lips were set in a thin line. “At this point, with the way Doyle is sniffing around for anything and everything implicating Hermione, her alibi had better be airtight. Can you account for her whereabouts all night, or at least at the time of Mark’s poisoning?” she asked, distressed for both her friend and the man that she held in high regard.

“Yes, she was with me. The whole night,” Harry replied, giving his partner a significant look that made Hermione blush when the blue-eyed brunette glanced her way.

Burying her initial feelings of pleasure upon hearing the latest development between her friends, Persephone frowned deeply and pulled them even closer. “So you’re together now?” she asked forthrightly as Hermione and Harry shared a bemused look, not having gotten to that part of the morning-after discussion. “Whatever,” she continued, her assumption nonetheless confirmed, “take care not to breathe a word of it to anyone, unless you, Potter, want to be reassigned to a case that doesn’t pose a conflict of interest.”

Harry looked to Hermione, who, having already damaged her career severely, did not want to take Harry down with her. “Fine,” he said, addressing his partner, “Hermione and I share a flat, so I can still account for her whereabouts.”

Persephone nodded once. “All right, I’ll stick to that,” she promised.

Hermione placed her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Thank you, Persephone, for everything. I mean it,” Hermione said feelingly.

A weak grin broke through the Auror’s gritty resolve. “Don’t thank me just yet, this is just the beginning. But you should probably get out of here before any of the others notice that Potter and I have vanished. I’ll go out first and you follow when the coast is clear. And Hermione—don’t forget your cloak.”

Hermione nodded her affirmation, throwing Harry’s invisibility cloak around her shoulders so that her head appeared to be floating. Persephone disappeared without a backward glance, and Hermione and Harry regarded each other with all the alarm they had withheld whilst in the presence of the other Auror.

“Hermione, this is worse than I thought,” whispered Harry, running a hand through his raven hair. “I think you should lie low for a while, go to Ron’s or something.”

Hermione was touched by the worry in his tone, but she was determined. “Actually, I’m going to go to St. Mungo’s and try to figure out who has been in the hospital’s store cupboards. That might shed some light on how this person’s been getting their hands on the hemlock poison.”

“Absolutely not, you heard what Persephone said, going to St. Mungo’s is too suspicious,” he said resolutely. Hermione supposed that if they weren’t crouched in their hiding place, he would have begun pacing at this point.

“No, Persephone said visiting Mark would be suspicious. There’s nothing wrong with me going to my place of employment, even if I have been sacked. Believe me, Harry, I’m more discrete than some people, I know how to keep my head down.” She crossed her arms impatiently, already eager to get on her way.

Harry mock glared at her. “Are you implying that I’m not the soul of discretion?” he asked with feigned indignation.

Hermione twitched her shoulders in a shrug, not realizing that they were invisible anyway. “Perhaps,” she said with a poorly hidden smirk. “Harry, trust me on this, I’ll be in and out as fast as possible.”

He was silent for a few minutes as he calculated the risk. His green eyes flitted up to meet her brown ones. “You understand that I’m only worried about you, right? I don’t know if I could handle anything happening to you, especially after—” He cut off, his voice filled with emotion.

“I know, Harry, I know. But you have to trust me,” she told him in a wavering tone, bring her arms around him in a hug that she felt greatly fortunate to give without a thought as to how long she could get away with hugging him.

Harry jumped as her arms went around his neck and Hermione’s face swam closer and Hermione giggled as she realized how strange it must be to be embraced by invisible arms. Even Harry was smiling when she pulled away.

“Oh! I have something to show you,” he said in a rush, torn between staying with her and returning to the investigation. He pulled out a piece of bronze with impeccable shine and the words ‘British Auror Department’ enfolded within the wings of an eagle.

“It’s an Auror badge,” she said in confusion.

Harry concurred. “I found it right when we got here. I don’t know if you noticed, but none of us are in uniform, so this was either planted or left by mistake.”

Hermione was one step ahead of him. “If this was left by accident, then that might mean that an Auror was here when it happened,” she said, surprised at this twist. “Doyle?” she asked uncertainly.

“Maybe,” Harry replied, his gaze far away in thought.

“Could he be so eager to get me accused of the other murders that he would do this?” she asked, at once feeling more fear toward the mysterious Auror than she had when he was interrogating her.

“I don’t know,” said Harry darkly.

Her thoughts raced off in another direction. “Are there any markings indicating identity, like a badge number or something?” she asked Harry, searching the piece of metal in his hands.

He shook his head. “They’re really just part of the formal uniform. We don’t normally wear them on missions or anything because we’re supposed to be undercover,” he explained.

“But you wear bright red robes,” she pointed out. Harry shrugged in a I-didn’t-make-up-the-rules sort of way.

“Potter! Where’ve you got to?” came the gruff voice of Harry’s higher-up.

“You’d better go,” Hermione said, torn between staying with him and investigating the stores at St. Mungo’s.

“Be careful,” he said, unable to resist warning her once more.

She threw her arms around him once more, briefing pecking his cheek with her lips. “I will. I love you, Harry,” she whispered to him for the first time.

“I love you too,” was his quickly reply as she leaned back to throw the cloak over her head as well. He stared at where her face would be with a slightly glazed expression before muttering a quick goodbye and dashing off to answer to his boss.

~*~

Hermione had never liked casting glamour charms on herself. There was just something unnerving about a completely different reflection staring back at you from the mirror. But the truth behind the phrase ‘desperate time call for desperate measures’ ultimately quieted her inner debate and that was how Hermione found herself now with flattened blond hair and dull gray eyes, as inconspicuous a visage as she could manage. She would need it in order to sneak into St. Mungo’s without being recognized.

She donned a blander version of her old Hogwarts uniform: a black pleated skirt that reached the knee, a crisp white blouse, a blazer so bulky that she looked almost like a rugby player, and a plain black cloak. When she looked into the mirror, she fidgeted at the gaze of the stranger reflected at her but she doubted even Ron would notice her in this get-up.

She took a deep breath, her brain to far ahead in planning what she was going to do once she got to the wizarding hospital to allow real nervousness. “Well, here goes,” she told the blond in the mirror, and with a final cursory glance, she was out the door.

In the event that she might be pursued as a murder suspect, Hermione decided to travel the Muggle way and avoid leaving behind a magical signature. It was already a risk to enter the healing establishment in the first place; if she were caught she would have a difficult time explaining why an innocent person would be parading around under the guise of a glamour. That left Hermione with one option: don’t get caught.

She was glad that her appearance and outfit selection was unremarkable enough to allow her to travel on the tube of muggle London without incurring too many stares. While she sat on the benched seat and fixed her eyes on one o the many advertisements lining the walls of the car, she wondered how Harry was doing at Mark’s house. As much as she would have like to reminisce about their time together the previous evening and the glorious morning following, Hermione knew that she needed to focus on the task at hand.

Poor Mark, she thought, her anger at the situation returning. Gone was the helpless Hermione of her Hogwarts days, always looking to Harry for direction when the going got tough—she was determined to find whoever was behind all of it. If only she could find a common thread.

“Oxford Circus,” came the bored announcement from the station master.

Hermione stood up quickly to avoid the masses of departing passengers, politely but assertively making her way through the throng of late-morning commuters toward the open doors of the car. Once out of the tube station, she was able to quicken her pace, forcing her nerves down with gulps of stale City air.

She had to find out who had access to the hospital’s storerooms, but disguised as an ordinary citizen, she would be prohibited from that very area of the hospital. Since she dared not use her own employee pass to obtain clearance, she needed—

“Isabelle,” she whispered loudly from outside the receptionists’ window in the waiting room of her department at St. Mungo’s. So far, she had passed through the hospital without a second glance from those around her, but she couldn’t be too careful.

Footsteps from the cubicle behind the front desk signaled someone’s approach. Hermione waited with bated breath, crossing her fingers that it was Isabelle and not one of the other receptionists she didn’t know as well. She seemed to be in luck because the heeled shoes producing such pronounced footsteps belonged to none other than Isabelle herself.

Hermione released a sigh of relief as her friend ambled over with a courteous smile on her face. “May I help you?” she asked in her American accent with a glance around the half-full waiting room.

“Isabelle, it’s me, Hermione. Look, I don’t have time to explain, but I need to use your employee to get into the restricted part of the hospital.” Her whispers came out in such a rush that they were barely audible, but the raven-haired seemed to get the gist because she was eyeing Hermione as though she were unsure whether to believe her.

Isabelle narrowed her eyes at the blond before her. “You’re Hermione Granger? Prove it,” she returned with her voice at a discrete level.

While she was glad that her friend wasn’t fool enough to take the word of a stranger on something as important as her identity, Hermione felt a surge of impatience at this delay. She immediately set about wracking her brain on a way to prove herself. An idea caught her and she eagerly leaned forward to explain. “Augustus Pye fancies you. Last Valentine’s Day he gave you a card that sang ‘Light My Fire’ at about 100 decibels.” There, though admittedly anyone working in the office at that time would have known about that card, Isabelle claimed that she had only confided in Hermione as to the identity of the sender.

The younger witch blushed hotly for a moment before her receptionist’s smile was replaced by a worried frown. “Hermione,” she hissed, “What are you doing here? Are you crazy?”

“Have you heard about Mark?” Hermione asked, ignoring the questioning of her sanity.

Isabelle looked about the reception room at the curious pairs of eyes aimed at the two witches’ intense conversation. “Get back here,” she said at once, throwing a door open to the left of the window they were speaking through and bidding her come through. Once the door was shut behind Hermione, Isabelle aimed her wand toward the window, darkening the glass for privacy and turning on the enchanted sign bearing the words ‘Back in five.’

“There, now no one will overhear,” she said, turning to the woman almost as famous as Harry Potter himself and now come to her for help. Resuming the conversation, she said, “Yes, I’ve heard about Mark. It’s all over the hospital, everyone knows—even down in research.”

“Really?” said Hermione, surprised that the news had traveled so far in just a few hours. “It’s not looking good and apparently one of the healers found the same poison in his system that killed that Mrs. Fairclough and your Adam Finnin. Some people are saying…” She trailed off, looking embarrassed.

“What are they saying?” Hermione demanded, disregarding her friend’s discomfort.

Isabelle shuffled her feet. “Well, some of the healers and other receptionists—the ones who don’t know you personally of course—think that maybe you’ve cracked, having had to talk to crazy people all day long. Obviously that just goes to show that they’re clueless as to what we actually do here but—”

“I get the point,” said Hermione, interrupting the girl’s rambling. “Well then, I was right to cast a glamour to come here if everyone thinks I’m a murderer.”

Isabelle gave Hermione a quick once-over. “You know, the blond suits you. I’m sorry I can’t say the same about the clothes but we all have our dowdy days. Actually, one of my sisters used to have that cloak—and we’re Muggle-born! Anyway, you said you needed my help?”

Hermione nodded, leading the other witch away from the reception room and toward the lifts that would take them to the main floor where Mark had taken her the day he forgot to lock the cupboards. “Yes, I need to you to get me to the storeroom where the hemlock poison is kept. If I can determine whether the poison that was used on Charlotte, Adam, and Mark was from there and who took it, then I might be able to get to the bottom of all this.”

“How’re you gonna do that?” asked Isabelle curiously, matching the blond’s long stride.

Hermione’s steps faltered momentarily as she realized that she hadn’t actually thought that far ahead. “I don’t know, I was just concerned with getting there first,” she admitted.

With a feigned huff of shame on her coworker’s behalf, Isabelle shook her head and said, “Hermione Granger without a plan—what is the world coming to? I suppose you could just look at the storeroom inventory records to see what’s missing and maybe who was on duty.”

Hermione full-out stopped again, causing Isabelle to continue on for a few paces without noticing. “Isabelle, that’s brilliant! What would I do without you?” Hermione barely restrained herself from embracing the girl in thanks.

The raven-haired receptionist pretended to consider as they resumed walking. “Hmmm, you’d probably be out of a job?”

“What?” she asked, stunned.

Her face grinning wickedly, Isabelle replied, “Well, after Adam I knew that the last thing you’d want is to be sacked or put on a leave of absence, so when Powell came around to draft up your notice of termination ‘for the good of the department,’ I told him that you’d already sent in an owl saying that you were going to take a few weeks off until everything blew over so that you wouldn’t drag down the department. He seemed to respond very favorably to that for some reason.”

Though she was glad that Isabelle had managed to salvage what was left of her career, Hermione was still irked by the pettiness of her boss. She supposed that anyone’s instinct would be to protect their own, but in this case that translated to the department rather than an actual employee.

“Thank you, Isabelle, I suppose I’ll owe you a lot once all this is over,” Hermione said graciously when they reached the row of lifts. When a car arrived, they piled in a with a half dozen others. Isabelle chose that moment to say, “Oh, you will, but luckily for you I accept Visa and Mastercard.”

A few of the lift passengers glanced over curiously, having overheard the exchange as Hermione was sure Isabelle intended. She rolled her eyes at Isabelle’s little joke as the witch giggled to herself. “Oh, I crack myself up. Good thing you grew up Muggle too, otherwise I would have no one tell my stupid jokes to.”

The lift reached the main floor and both witches silently disembarked, heading toward the storeroom with the mentality that they belonged there. It was the same approach that Hermione’s mother used to employ when they’d sneak into fancy hotels to use the pool when she was a child—the same approach that would embarrass her to no end. “Just act like you’re meant to be here, Hermione, and no one will question you,” she would say.

Hermione and Isabelle were nearly at their destination when their path crossed that of the worst possible person.

“Why, Isabelle, fancy seeing you here!” came Augustus Pye’s enthusiastic greeting.

Hermione’s eyes went wide as her fear of being recognized loomed closer. Isabelle skillfully schooled her wince into a politely surprised expression. “Augustus, how nice to see you. I was just showing my friend, uh—” She looked pleadingly at Hermione.

“Jane, Jane Grey,” she replied, thinking of the first random name that popped into her head and hoping Healer Pye wasn’t too good at his English history. She also hoped that invoking the name of the Nine Days’ Queen wouldn’t earn her the same fate.

It turned out that Pye must have slept through that particular lesson if he had indeed learned of it at all, because he rubbed his hands together pompously and said, “Splendid, splendid. And why are you touring this particular establishment?”

Isabelle shot Hermione a look that said, This one’s all yours. Hermione pasted on a gracious smile and replied, “I was actually considering a career in medicine and Isabelle here was kind enough to show me the inner workings of the hospital.”

Pye’s eyes were now completely focused on Isabelle and she fidgeted under the attention. “Yeah, so we have to get going—”

“Unless of course you’d be so good as to show us the storerooms. I’ve heard they’re absolutely enormous,” Hermione interrupted, smiling flirtatiously and hating herself for using sexual innuendo to get her way.

If the new red tinge on his cheeks was an indication, it seemed that Pye wasn’t as dense as Hermione had hoped. “Of course, anything for the sake of medical education,” he said, beckoning them toward the storeroom door. He paused there, fumbling amongst the dozens of keys he kept on a large brass ring for the one to undo the lock.

Hermione eyed the ring, wondering how many sets of keys to the storeroom were distributed amongst the employees. She took a deep breath, daring to ask, “Wow, that’s a lot of keys. What happens if you lose the whole ring and can’t get in where you need to?”

To that Pye responded, “Oh, well fortunately my chief trainee Healer, Mark Bonner, also has a copy.” His face fell slightly as he remembered the fate of the aforementioned young man, but his smile was back when he turned to face them again after opening the door.

Hermione forced herself to think of the task at hand and not how horribly responsible she felt for Mark’s current state. She reaffirmed her vow to find out who tried to rob of her friend. There are only two keys to the storeroom, she reminded herself. And Mark has one.

“Here we are,” announced the healer, indicating the scores of shelves with their labeled contents. “On this side, you’ll find the potion ingredients for most of our antidotes. And over here are all of the equipment necessary for successful Healing.” He beamed at them proudly, enjoying his role as tour guide.

For Hermione’s sake, Isabelle smiled back and replied, “Fascinating. But how do you keep track of what comes in and out?” Hermione smiled, grateful that she wouldn’t be asking all the questions. She had to give Isabelle credit—for someone who to Hermione’s knowledge hadn’t ever been involved with investigative work, she was doing an excellent job.

Pye was pleased that Isabelle was so attentive. “We keep detailed files of course, just over there,” he said, pointing to a clipboard sitting on a nearby shelf with a rather large stack of parchment attached. Hermione’s eyes lit up at the sight. “They’re updated automatically to reflect changes in the inventory.”

“Oh, how…sophisticated,” breathed Isabelle, looking to Hermione for more synonyms.

Hermione gave a slight shrug, wholly focused on reading the parchment. “You distract him while I have a look at the files,” said Hermione as an aside to Isabelle. The other witch nodded resolutely but couldn’t quite hide the sour look on her face. Having heard the whispers of their conference, Pye turned around curiously. At once the witches pulled their heads apart and beamed at him enthusiastically.

“So Augustus, how are your trainee Healers faring under your careful tutelage?” simpered Isabelle with impressive ease. Hermione didn’t even hear his reply; once she was sure that he was occupied, she slipped away unnoticed to seize her chance.

She grabbed the clipboard and turned her back so that her body would hide her actions if the Healer happened to look over. Scrolling down the list of items, she located the accounting of the hemlock poison for the past few weeks. She ran her finger down the row of dates, intending to go farther back to when Charlotte Fairclough was murdered, but she was greatly dismayed to find that the current stack of parchment didn’t go that far into the past. In fact, when she squinted at the figures, there seemed to be dates missing. Hermione suddenly pulled back; clearly whoever had taken the poison had planned ahead well or knew enough to erase the record of its removal.

“Jane! Time to go!” called Isabelle’s strained voice from a few yards away. Clearly she was not enjoying her alone time with Healer Augustus Pye.

Hermione jumped at the sudden noise and returned the clipboard to its spot on the shelf. She made her way back to the pair, saying, “Wow, I can’t believe there are so many ingredients in here!” She felt slightly disgusted with her shallow behavior, even knowing that it was false.

“Yes, but that’s just part of the allure of medicine,” said Pye, apparently trying his hand about innuendo.

Both witches blushed in moderate embarrassment. Hermione was still eager to look around more, but without knowing what she was looking for exactly, now that she knew the information she needed had been covered up, she was at a lost. Isabelle appeared to be sticking it out, though it was fairly obvious that there were other places she’d rather be.

As they headed toward the entrance, Pye paused at another shelf and exclaimed, “Oh! I almost forgot. I have to enter your names on this.” He brought forth another clipboard with a list of names. Hermione could just make out the heading: “Storeroom Entrant Name and Position.”

“So…Augustus Pye, Healer,” he began, with emphasis on his rank in the hospital. “Next, Isabelle Parker, Receptionist for the Department of Psychological Services. And…ah, yes, Jane Grey, er, No Profession. Is that correct?” he asked, showing her what he had written. Hermione took the opportunity to lean into him so that she could read over the list from earlier dates. He interpreted it as her trying to get closer so allowed her take all the time she needed to look over his writing. Swallowing her discomfort, Hermione blessed all those years of reading every book she could get her hands on; in a way, they had prepared her for the speed reading that she needed at this moment.

Then her eyes slid across something that made her blood run cold: her own name. It was recorded the initial time that she had come when Mark had accidentally forgotten to lock the cupboards, but also another time—a time that she had no recollection of. She also noticed that it happened to coincide with the missing date from the inventory records. Suddenly, she became terrified that maybe somehow she had been there, she had taken the poison. And maybe she had been responsible for all those poisonings.

Her head swam with the possibilities, and her mouth answered of its accord, “Of course, it looks fine.”

Minutes later, the two witches made their goodbyes, and Hermione deftly avoiding a dinner invitation from the Healer. Isabelle teased her about it as they made their way back to the office but Hermione pointed out that he was just trying to make her, Isabelle, jealous.

“I can’t believe you just did that,” Isabelle said in a scandalized tone of voice, referring to the flirting that the blond used to find out information. “Seriously, he’s old enough to be your father.”

Hermione groaned. “He’s not that old,” she argued. “And let’s not have this discussion. I have to go—so much to do. Listen, I can’t thank you enough, really.”

“Um, Hermione? One more thing,” said Isabelle with her gaze directed near Hermione’s waist.

Her mind was already miles away, planning how to get the investigation going, knowing what she had just discovered. “Yes?” she asked, pausing on her way out of the room.

Isabelle pointed. “Why do you have MEMORY written on your left hand?”

Hermione looked up and heaved a great sigh. “You don’t want to know.”

A/N: Worth the wait? Maybe? I’ll get the next chapter out as soon as I can, but it may be a while….Almost done! Thanks for sticking with me so far!

A/N: Sorry this took so long. Writing this chapter required two plane trips, one round-trip Chunnel ride, and a lovely little moleskin notebook. I hope you all really like this chapter—I think it earns the PG13 rating near the end—and thanks to all of my fantastic reviewers who have encouraged me so much!

Disclaimer: I don’t own any o’ this. Toooooo baaaad.

Chapter 10~~A Bit of Light Reading

“Thanks for coming over so quickly, Ron,” said Harry as he shut the door behind his red-headed best friend. “But be warned, Hermione’s gotten herself all worked up.”

Ron shrugged casually, muttering something about her general mental state. “No worries, got to do my duty to the ‘Golden Trio,’ right? Besides—bloody hell,” he breathed, pausing as he entered the dining area of the flat that had practically been converted into a veritable think tank. Hermione had erected easels all around the room with anything and everything concerning the cases of Charlotte Fairclough, Adam Finnin, and now Mark Bonner. “Hermione, what have you done to your dining room? Where will you eat?” he asked, immediately getting to the main point.

She breezed into the room, using her wand to adhere sheets of parchment to the various easels and rearranging them in a system that clearly she alone understood. “This is to help us visualize everything properly. We’ve got the case files from the counseling sessions, plus what Harry could find out about the crime scenes, and now you, Mr. Strategy,” she said, directing the last bit toward Ron as she finally seemed to notice his arrival. She missed the alarmed glance Ron threw toward Harry as he mouthed the words Does she ever draw breath?

Harry ignored his head and turned to his girlfriend, who was shooting him a significant look. He cleared his throat apprehensively and gave Hermione the go-ahead.

She stepped forward toward Ron and stood at Harry’s side. “Ron, we wanted to tell you something before we get started,” she began seriously.

“You’re together,” he replied promptly with a matter-of-fact shrug.

Hermione and Harry shared a bemused look and Harry’s mouth was opening and closing soundlessly. “How did you—”

“Look, I may not be the most perceptive bloke on the planet, but I’m not blind either. At least not as blind as the pair of you. Honestly, it’s been all I can do to keep Luna from planting a yellow-spotted yugglact in your flat to help you get a move on.” Ron chuckled at the bewildered expressions on his best friends’ faces.

“So you’re okay with it?” said Harry, as though he was waiting for Ron to change his mind.

Based on her conversation with Ron when they were alone at the pub the night of Adam’s murder, Hermione was fairly sure that Ron had been expecting this announcement for quite a while. She was glad that despite his wife’s good intentions, he did not take it upon himself to initiate anything between she and Harry. Of course, if they had had the helpful hand of the yellow-spotted yugglact, whatever that was, they might have been spared much heartache and laments of wasted time.

“Put it this way: ‘It’s about time’ is probably the understatement of the century.” The trio erupted into laughter that, despite its being partially at her own expense, Hermione felt was much needed given the heavy subject matter they were about to delve into. She watched as her best friends clapped each other on the back good-naturedly and did not want to be the one to bring the pleasant atmosphere down.

In their own time, she, Harry, and Ron made their way to the table, which, aside from the box that held Hermione’s work-related materials and three steaming cups of tea, was bare. Just like my idea on how to begin, Hermione thought ruefully. As they seated themselves—Harry at one end and Ron and Hermione facing each other on either side—the anticipated somber mood descended, percolated with a strange sense of déjà vu. A glance at her best friends indicated that they had noticed it too.

All at once the reason came to her. “This is how we used to sit when we were discussing horcruxes,” she said quietly. The boys nodded, each probably lost in their own particular reminiscences as they recalled some of the good and bad times they’d had sitting around a table in this arrangement over the years. Hermione remembered those fantastic times when a food basket from Mrs. Weasley would arrive after days gone by without a proper meal, as well as the equally terrible ones when they had to camp Muggle-style in the winter months to avoid leaving a magical signature. Hermione hoped to never be inside anything made of canvas ever again.

Ron appeared to have snapped out of his recollections because he was rubbing his hands together feverishly. “So where do we start?”

The last time Ron had asked her that, Hermione had been on the receiving end of the same expectant look and she had been just as prepared with an answer. “This isn’t like before. In the past we knew the who and why but not the when and how. Now we don’t even know the who or why.”

“Well there’s really no need to be so optimistic, Hermione,” said Ron, and she smiled despite herself.

Harry retrieved something from his pocket and tossed it onto the table. It skidded to a halt in the middle of the three of them and as they watched it rock back and forth with the ornate golden ‘MA’ label facing up, Harry spoke. “Actually, we might be close to figuring out the who. I found this in Mark’s flat,” he explained for Ron’s benefit. “It’s an Auror badge, part of our formal uniform, which none of us were wearing that day.”

“Could be a red herring,” said Hermione. Both boys turned toward her in confusion. She rolled her eyes and let out a huff of exasperation. “Oh honestly, don’t you two read? It’s from the Sherlock Holmes detective series—a Muggle classic. A ‘red herring’ is in reference to a clue that is meant to lead the reader to the wrong conclusion, so that they are caught off guard when the final twist happens.”

Rubbing his chin in thought, Ron said, “Sounds like every year of Hogwarts.”

“The point is though, that it could have been an Auror, or someone with access to an Auror badge,” said Harry.

“Could the badge have been transfigured from something else? Are we sure that it’s genuine?” asked Hermione. Without waiting for a reply, she answered her own question by whipping out her wand and muttering a few well-chosen spells. She sat back in her seat; the badge was real. “Well then, let’s say it is an Auror. Do we have any suspects besides the obvious?”

“Who’s ‘the obvious’?” asked Ron, looking back and forth between Hermione and Harry.

“Doyle,” Harry answered. “Not the friendliest of people, has been trying to get evidence against Hermione for the murders for a while. And he was at the scene…”

“But you don’t think it’s him,” finished Ron. “What do you think?” he asked Hermione.

She considered her interaction with Doyle thus far. “I think he sincerely thought that I was behind it—at least the memory modification part. But no, it would be almost too easy if it were him.”

“Okay, anyone else in the Auror department that may have a grudge against nice old people and trainee Healers?” Ron directed toward Harry.

Harry shrugged. “I don’t personally know any of them, besides Persephone, so I can’t really say. What?” he said to Ron’s pointed look.

The redhead shifted uneasily in his seat. “Well, what about Persephone?”

Harry stared back at his friend. “You’re kidding right? Ron, she’s my partner for Merlin’s sake. That would be like suspecting one of you.” Ron did not appear to be convinced and didn’t have to voice what they were all thinking—with someone out there altering memories, they couldn’t even trust themselves. “Fine, I’m pretty sure that she was occupied on all the nights in question.”

“Occupied? How so?” asked Hermione, surprised for the rare glimpse into Persephone’s personal life. Aside from her involvement with Mark, Hermione had no idea what Persephone was like outside of Auror mode. Like Harry, she doubted that the petite brunette could be capable of cold murder, or in Mark’s case attempted murder, but it didn’t really make sense that someone intent on poisoning innocent people who all seemed to lead back to her would try to spring her from jail.

“Every few days she visits the grave of her brother where he’s buried at her family’s home in Essex,” Harry explained hesitantly.

“Oh, I had no idea that he was dead,” Hermione said. She felt a surge of pity toward the woman younger than herself who, like the man before her, had lost her entire family. “In the war?”

Harry nodded silently. She had a feeling that he thought he was betraying his partner by informing his friends of her personal whereabouts. For his sake, she was anxious to move on.

“So it could be an Auror, and not necessarily an active one at present. And of course, it could just be someone in possession of an Auror badge with no affiliation with the department whatsoever, who planted the badge at the scene to throw us off,” she said dismally, feeling more lost than when they’d started.

“Ah, the red earring,” nodded Ron.

“The who is still up in the air then,” said Harry with a sigh. He rested his chin on steepled fingers. “What about the why? Hermione, do you think the fact that all of the victims are close to you is significant?”

Hermione was strangely comforted by Harry’s professional manner and gave his question due thought. “I think it’s safe to say that since whoever is behind this is going out of their way to also change not only the memories of witnesses but mine as well, they’re not exactly my friend at this point,” she replied with a sardonic laugh.

“Pissed anyone off lately, Hermione?” asked Ron only half-joking. “Besides the anti-spew people,” he clarified.

Hermione sighed, running a hand through her knotting hair. She felt for her tea cup; the liquid within had gone cold. “None that I can think of. My clients seem generally happy. My boss was until I started generating bad PR for the department. And it’s not spew, Ron, how many times do I—”

“Okay, so the why is out of the question too. Ron, did you find anything out from Ginny?” Harry broke in.

Hermione perked up at the potential for good news. If the Charms professor had nothing helpful to offer, she didn’t know who else to ask. Ron nodded and answered at once. “She says she’s only come across charms that remove a person’s memory of a specific event or damage their ability to retain memories in general. Our best bet is probably a potion.”

Slightly crestfallen at the dead end, Hermione said, “No, I’ve already checked potions. There’s nothing.” They were silent as another possibility was metaphorically crossed off of their very short list. “Let’s just outline everything we know, starting with Charlotte.”

“Okay,” agreed the two men. “I’m all ears,” added Ron, when it became apparent that they were waiting for her to speak.

Hermione stood up from the table so that she could point things out on the various easels. She paced back and forth as she formulated what she was going to say. When she turned to face her best friends, she was oddly buoyed up by their familiar eager expressions. She felt a heartening smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as she laid out all of the information. “Let’s discuss what the three victims have in common. All three fought in the war. All were poisoned with the same toxin in a way to suggest suicide. All were found in their own homes with witnesses first offering no explanation for the victims’ behavior, and then changing their stories later to say that the supposed suicide was not surprising.”

She froze, an idea coming to her. “Wait. Wait—” She said, reaching for the box on the table and pulling out one of the few folders that wasn’t adhered to a board. She flipped through a few pieces of parchment until she found the information she sought and then turned back to her friends who were waiting as she had bid. “And they knew each other. I had forgotten that Mark was the one who referred Adam to me in the first place. Mark told me that they had met sometime during the war and when he heard my department was starting up at St. Mungo’s, he told Adam to look me up. And Adam told me in our last session that he and Charlotte were neighbors in Hogsmeade. I realize that it’s a far leap to connect social association with cause of death—after all, the three of us know each other but that doesn’t mean that wouldn’t be the reason that someone would pick us off one by one—but it’s something,” she finished.

“It can’t be coincidence,” Ron agreed. “I mean the world is small, but it’s not that small.”

Harry had his eyes screwed up. “Hermione, do you think the fact that they all know you is significant here, or just that they know each other?” he asked seriously.

She found his professional manner to be oddly comforting, but she wasn’t sure how to answer. “That’s the real question isn’t it?” she said, leaning back into her seat and worrying her bottom lip between her teeth—a habit she only engaged in when she was overly anxious. “I mean, what if I was responsible for it all? It’s my name on the list of entrants into the St. Mungo’s storeroom on the dates of Charlotte and Adam’s death. They’re my clients and colleagues,” she said dismally.

Harry reached over to grasp her hand. “But you were with me the entire time, Hermione,” he told her reassuringly.

She squeezed his hand and turned to him miserably. “You only remember me being with you. That’s why the idea of someone out there changing memories is so dangerous!”

“I’m sorry,” Ron interrupted, probably sensing Hermione’s impending hysteria. “I just don’t get how someone can go around changing memories without using a charm or a potion. Even something like the Polyjuice Cloak requires the combination of both, whereas someone like Tonks—a Metamorphmagus—doesn’t need either one to look like someone else.”

Hermione sat bolt upright, unconsciously dropping Harry’s hand and leaning forward across the table. “Say that again,” she demanded of her red-haired friend.

He looked momentarily confused, but apparently decided to indulge her. “Well, the Polyjuice Cloak requires—”

“No, no, no, about the Metamorphmagi. Never mind,” she said before sprinting from the table and down the hall to her bedroom. She approached the bookcase that housed all of the reference material that she had already perused once in her research on memory charms and potions. This time, however, her sure fingers grazed the spines of several thick and well-loved tomes, pausing on a navy blue gilded book titled Inherent Wizarding Abilities in gold leaf lettering. She stumbled backward with the sudden weight on the book when it landed in her hands and hastily made her way back to the dining table.

“A book. I should have known,” said Ron with mild amusement.

She ignored him as she slammed the tome on the table, rattling tea cups and startling the two wizards, and flipped wildly through the pages until she reached the chapter she sought. With an air of satisfaction at finally making some progress, she turned the book so that her friends could read the chapter heading and announced, “Gentlemen, I do believe we have the how.”

“Mnemomagi?” said Harry uncertainly.

Hermione went to the kitchen to retrieve more tea for them. “Just like a Metamorphmagus can change appearance at will and an Animagus can assume the form of a specific animal, a Mnemomagus is capable of manipulating the information any person stores as memory. These are intrinsic powers of the wizard and cannot be detected within their magical signature and generally cannot be learned. Unfortunately, despite the dangers involved, Mnemomagi are so rare that the Ministry has not seen fit to establish any kind of registry like they have with Animagi and Metamorphmagi,” she explained.

The three were silent as they considered the implications of a wizard with this power. “Blimey, you could have done anything if you can’t remember it,” Ron said darkly.

Harry nodded in agreement. “Not the best power of persuasion,” he added.

Hermione was silent, not needing reminding that a wizard with any influence over her would make a formidable foe. Suddenly a grin spread across her face as a realization came to her. “You know what this means? I didn’t do it!”

“How do you figure?” asked Ron, but Harry had a light bulb over his head as though he were right along with her in her thought process.

Pouring fresh tea into each of their cups as she sat down, Hermione said, “Well, I figured that a Mnemomagus can only change how your brain retains information, they can’t necessarily make you do something you wouldn’t ordinarily do. And since I don’t usually go around poisoning people I know—”

“That you know of,” interjected Ron with a feigned ominous expression.

“Then I probably didn’t do it!” she finished with no small measure of relief.

Harry’s grin matched hers. “All that evidence against you was circumstantial anyway,” said Harry, eager to accept her theory. “So how can they be stopped? I mean, do Mnemomagi have any weaknesses?”

She grinned and grabbed the book, skimming wordlessly through the chapter. Wrinkling her brow in concentration she gave him as adequate an answer as she could. “Well, it says in here that any kind of mind manipulation is exhausting, but especially when within anti-Mnemonic wards.”

“Anti-Mnemonic wards? I’ve never heard of those,” he said, rubbing his chin in thought.

Hermione shook her head, inwardly cursing herself for not thinking of the book sooner. “Me neither, but you can either invoke the wards to prevent memory tampering or—well, that’s strange,” she muttered to herself, reaching behind her to grab a black marker off the counter.

“What is it?” asked Harry concernedly.

Hermione held up her hand, where she had written potentia eradico in black beneath the word MEMORY. “Apparently, they do have a little weakness. I’d like to see them try and mess with my memory now,” Hermione said with a menacing smirk.

Harry brought her hand to lips and said with some proud amusement. “Merlin, Hermione, I love you when you’re all threatening and scary.”

A giggle escaped as she blushed at Harry’s admission. She opened her mouth to flirt back a little when their moment was interrupted by the sound of Ron rummaging in the box that held some of Hermione’s work things. The distinct clinking of glass was followed by Ron’s curious, “Hey guys, what’s this?”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “I’m glad you’ve learned your lesson about touching unknown magical objects Ron,” she said sarcastically. “And for your information, what you are holding is—”

“Thoughts,” answered Harry, who from experience recognized the swirling silvery liquid.

With raised eyebrows, Ron held the glass up to the light to inspect it closer. “May I ask why you have people’s thoughts in jars in your box here?” he asked as though he was sure she had cracked.

“It’s nothing sinister, I assure you,” she answered. “Sometimes a traumatic event can leave emotional as well as physical scars on a person, and at times they are unable to recover without have to face their own memories of the event and their part in them. Early on I had this idea that if people were able to literally face their memories, it may accelerate the healing process,” she continued, speaking of her personal experience with facing off against her own demons. Robert Henderson flashed across her mind and Harry’s hand covered her clenched one.

“Or wreck them completely,” offered Ron, who rarely responded positively what he considered as ‘psycho babble.’

Harry shot him a quelling look and then broke into a grin as he turned to face her. “That’s brilliant, Hermione! So these are Adam’s thoughts?”

“Yes, well his memories,” she clarified, reaching to grab the bottle from Ron’s hands. She recognized the faded label as being from one of her first sessions with Adam, when she was first embarking on her theory of traumatic treatment. It read simply Jemma on her broom with the date.

Hermione thought back to those first few sessions, when she had been so unsure of herself and her ability to help people when she had her own haunted past. Looking over at the rest of the bottles she had collected from her clients, she thought about how it was all a waste. Adam wouldn’t be coming back and all she had left of him were her psycho-analytical reports and the memories he had left in her possession, his most vulnerable moments at her fingertips. And all for nothing, since she could no longer help him.

Ron was studying the label of another bottle. “Hey Hermione, you said that the victims all knew each other?”

“Yes,” she answered, not sure where he was going with his question. “They all fought in the war together.”

The redhead held the bottle out to her and she took it hesitantly, waiting for his explanation. “Well, what if the war was the link? Maybe they all tried to take down a Death Eater but he escaped and now wants revenge?” he asked, becoming exciting with his own idea.

Hermione considered in all fairness that it was more than she could think up. “Maybe,” she shrugged, still not entirely convinced. She looked down at the bottle in her hand, knowing that she was holding Adam’s memories of the war that she tried to persuade him from removing.

Harry read the label over her shoulder. Steeling himself, he said gently, “I think we should go in.”

She turned to him sharply and then relented that his suggestion was the next logical step to finding out more about who was behind all this. They would have to dive into Adam’s memories from the war and hope that it might shed some light on his connection with Charlotte and Mark.

Squeezing her arm once, Harry got up from the table and returned with something she hadn’t seen in years. “Sorry, it hasn’t gotten much use,” he apologized, blowing the loose dust particles from the inside of what he was holding. Gingerly, he set his inheritance from Dumbledore down on the table and the three wizards regarded it anxiously.

“We’re going back,” Hermione said, mostly to Ron. Harry had seen plenty of action over the years in his profession as an Auror, but Hermione and Ron had not used their wands in a combative sense since the end of the war.

Ron nodded once to her as they began to wordlessly clear the table of teacups and extra bottles. Hermione held the bottle plainly labeled War above the stone basin, her eyes roaming the familiar rune symbols that lined the rim, and looked to her two best friends for confirmation. Ron was wearing an oddly exuberant grin and at the confused looks he was receiving from his best friends, he announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Golden Trio returns.”

Hermione grinned as well and promptly poured the silvery liquid into the stone basin on the center of the table. With a final nod, the trio prodded it with their wands and quickly found themselves falling through nothing and stumbling as their shoes met the solid ground. Knowing on some intellectual level that they were not physically present in the events that they were witnessing, they still had to fight their instinctive reflex to duck the barrage of spells that seemed to have suddenly erupted around them. Hermione signaled to the boys to move to a better vantage point, and they followed at a swift pace to a surprisingly intact wrought iron bench on the edge of the pavement.

“We’re in Hogsmeade!” yelled Ron above the din of firing spells and shouts of pain. Hermione blocked everything out but the sound of her best friends’ voices. He pointed up at the hanging wooden sign for Honeydukes and the trio noted the amount of shattered windows and broken glass littering the street.

“This must be near the end,” added Harry. The battle in Hogsmeade, lasting over several days, was one of the bloodiest in the war outside of the Final Battle, but also one of the last in the war. One the first anniversary of the battle, a monument to commemorate those lost in the all-wizarding village was unveiled in the village center.

Hermione was so accustomed to seeing it when she walked through Hogsmeade that she almost expected it to be standing tall in the memory as well. “Do you see Adam?” she asked loudly, shielding her eyes from the light of all the curses flying past.

“There he is!” shouted Harry, pointing just to her left, past a young boy with dark brown hair who was leaping out into the open to fire and back behind and overturned rubbish bin for cover. She caught sight of Adam just behind the boy, using as cover what appeared to be a chair on its last leg taken from one of the businesses.

A flash of ginger hair to her right caught her attention. “And there’s Charlotte!” she said, indicating the direction of the matronly yet very agile old woman. They watched for a brief moment as she dodged the curses flying above her and returned a few of her own.

Suddenly a brilliant blaze of light exploded above the melee and Hermione saw through squinted eyes the boy from earlier rushing from his hiding place to the center of the street where the motionless body of another fighter lay. From her perspective she could see how foolish running out into the open like the boy had was, but she wasn’t really in the position to judge anyone’s noble stupidity.

“I think I see Mark!” said Ron, pointing at a huddled figure closer to them. It was becoming harder to see anything with the haze of spells flying from every direction and the smoke rising from untended fires. Mark was indeed fairing better than the others, able to get out at least two shots for every one that hit his postbox shield.

“Aaaaahhhh!” came the anguished scream of pain from the boy who’d run to help his comrade. Hermione covered her mouth as the smell of burnt flesh reached her nostrils and she fought the urge to retch. The boy, who Hermione now realized would have been about her own age in that year, was clutching at a massive singe mark on his wand arm and positively howling in pain. Hermione felt Harry’s arm grip her shoulders as the boy did possibly the least intelligent thing he could have done—he stood straight up.

“No!” she yelled, forgetting that she was unable to warn him. The curses were soaring past in from every which way and it was only a matter of time before one struck him. One did in due course and it was impossible to tell from where it originated. The boy crumpled and fell onto the lifeless body he was tending without another sound.

Hermione felt the blood rushing up in her ears as though she were being submerged underwater. The face of Robert Henderson swam in front of her as she swayed to the rhythm of her own pounding heartbeat.

“Hermione…Hermione…Hermione!” Harry’s voice pierced through her waterlogged thoughts. He was shaking her. “Hermione, we have to go!” he was saying anxiously.

She shook her head as though dazed. “What? Why?” she asked.

“Mione, look around! Mark’s here, so is Charlotte and Adam!” he yelled, fumbling through his robes for his wand so that they could exit the pensieve. Ron was staring ahead of him and doing the same.

She did as she was told, searching through the chaos for the faces of those she knew. Suddenly she caught sight of another face she had not expected to see. Her hand flew up to her mouth again. “Luna!”

A/N: Read? Review!

A/N: Hi, everyone! Once again, thanks to all my awesome possum reviewers! I love you guys! Okay, enough exclamations. I just want to say that this chapter was the very first scene I thought of for this story, and the idea sort of went from there. So, while you’re reading, keep in mind that this chapter has been almost a year and a half in the making! I hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer—Do not own any of this, except the plot and a few characters.

Chapter 11—Powers of Persuasion

“Luna!” Hermione’s hand muffled her exclamation so that it was barely audible, but the trio was already in action. Like in the end of some dreams when she could feel each layer of consciousness as she rose through them to wake, Hermione felt herself and her two companions rising through the layers of Adam’s memory.

Instantly her two feet were back on solid, true ground and she staggered slightly at the touchdown.

“We have to go to her,” said Ron in a determined tone that brooked no argument.

Hermione nodded, surprised that he hadn’t already Apparated out of the flat. She felt in the side pocket of her trousers where her wand was kept, and patter it satisfactorily. In times of danger, she knew from experience, one usually could not do better than having one’s wand and one’s head—as well as one’s friends to watch one’s back.

“Let’s go,” said Harry, who was fully into Auror mode. He grabbed the shiny rectangular object he had in his pocket, which Hermione recognized as being the communicator Aurors used amongst their ranks. “I’m telling Persephone to call for back up,” he explained, and Ron and Hermione impatiently fidgeted as Harry sent his partner a text of the possible situation, the address to Luna’s father’s house where Ron had said she was visiting, and request reinforcement.

All Hermione could think about was getting to Luna before it was too late. They had almost solved the mystery—or at least how all the victims were connected. She could still see burning in her mind the faces of Charlotte and Mark as Adam remembered them.

Harry returned the communicator to his pocket and the three wizards prepared themselves for Apparation. Hermione shut her eyes tightly, trying to block out the worries and fears that insisted on intruding into her focus on Mr. Lovegood’s house. She had only visited the place once or twice, so it was of vital importance that she visualized the destination correctly. Without another word, three faint pops erupted in Hermione and Harry’s flat and they were gone.

The neighborhood around Luna’s childhood home was eerily silent, or maybe it was just that in Hermione’s experience, night so quiet that she could hear the blood pounding in her veins was almost always accompanied by an overwhelming sense of foreboding. The trio raced up the end of the drive and went around the back of the house to the kitchen entrance there. Ron reached out to grasp the door handle but Harry grabbed his arm before he made contact.

“Hold on Ron, maybe I should check it out first,” whispered Harry, moving to the front of the group and retrieving his wand from his robes.

Ron glared at him angrily, using the advantage of his longer limbs to reach around Harry and clutch the handle of the back door. “It’s my wife, Harry,” he hissed, “and I’m perfectly capable.” With that he pushed open the heavy door and stepped inside the kitchen, his wand drawn and his eyes darting around in search for his wife.

Hermione saw her first, lying on her side with the scattered remains of what appeared to be her dinner beside her. She pointed and gasped, “Ron!”

He was on the floor beside her in an instant, smoothing her long, dirty blond hair away from her face and feeling her neck for a pulse. “She’s alive,” he announced, sighing in relief. Harry cursed under his breath in a grateful way and turned away, running his hand through his hair and making it stand on end.

But Hermione was in her element—she had had minor training in healing after the war, but one look at Luna told her that she needed to act quickly and get someone more experienced to save her. “Ron,” she said, assuming her natural commanding presence, “go to St. Mungo’s immediately and bring some Healers back here. I can keep her stable for a while, but if it’s hemlock, then we don’t have much time. The poison is attacking her nervous system and we need to get her help quickly. Can you do that?”

Ron nodded firmly and clenched his jaw and he wordlessly sprinted from the house and down to the Apparition point.

Hermione looked back at Harry, who had moved around the prostrate form of Luna and was studying the scene with frightening detachment. “This wasn’t an accident,” he said finally, indicating the broken bowl on the floor and the absence of any hemlock bottle in the vicinity.

Hermione made a noise of assent, having noticed that as well, and returned to her ministrations on Luna. She was finding it difficult to remember the healing spells she had learned so only a few years before and she couldn’t afford to be distracted. “Harry, maybe Persephone didn’t get your page—should you go see what’s taking the rest of the Aurors so long?” she suggested without looking up.

“Are you sure?” he asked hesitantly.

“We need to find out who’s done all this,” she replied, gritting her teeth in determination. “We can’t let them get away again.”

Harry’s mouth was set in a grim line but he honored her wishes by Apparating to the Ministry after muttering, “I’ll be right back,” and quickly kissing her cheek.

Hermione performed the final spell that would stabilize her friend and held her breath as she cast, “Enervate.” The blonde’s eyelids fluttered for a moment before opening in the permanently surprised way that Hermione was so used to seeing. Her large blue eyes flitted around the room as though looking for someone and then finally settled on Hermione as though she were trying to tell her something. “Luna, try to stay calm. You’ve been poisoned and we need to keep your heart rate low so it won’t spread faster,” Hermione warned. “You can’t speak just yet, so just blink once for no and twice for yes, all right?”

Luna blinked twice, her eyes somehow conveying her effort to compose herself.

“Do you know who did this to you?” Hermione took a deep breath, feeling guilty for interrogating her friend while toxic poison was coursing through her body, but unable to just do nothing. In the back of her mind, she wondered what the hell was taking Harry and Ron so long.

As though she had been summoned, Persephone Perris burst through the door, clutching a stitch in her side after apparently taking the path up the drive and around the house at a run. “Hermione! Where’s Harry? I just got his page!” she said between breaths.

Hermione tensed, suddenly worried about her boyfriend that she had sent away. “He went looking for you—at the Ministry!” she replied. A slight pressure on the hand that was cradling the blonde’s head caused her to look down at Luna, who had regained enough mobility to tilt her head back so that it was crushing Hermione’s fingers. Luna was blinking furiously, her eyes darting away and back to Hermione’s, as Hermione struggled to make out Luna’s meaning.

Suddenly, with cold fingers of dread climbing up her spine, Hermione understood the message Luna was trying to send. Blink twice, look away and back. Blink twice, and look away. Hermione followed Luna’s eyes and found herself staring at the business end of Persephone’s wand. Her gaze continued upward until she met the cool blue eyes of the Auror that she had begun to trust so much.

“I’ll wait while you catch up with the rest of the class,” Persephone said sarcastically, her heavy completely normal.

Hermione was immobile as a barrage of images flashed in her brain—

A petite brunette with stunning blue eyes rose shyly as Hermione entered her office for their first session.

“Good morning, you must be Persephone,” said Hermione warmly, holding out her hand to be shaken. She noticed the girl was probably a little bit younger than her and despite the fact that she was a little on the thin side, she seemed to carry a weight common to every young soldier who had fought in the war.

The girl offered a weak smile out of politeness and cleared her throat to speak. “Yeah, Persephone Perris,” she answered quietly. She shook Hermione’s hand limply and at Hermione’s indication returned to her seat.

Hermione wandlessly initiated the action of the quill that would be transcribing that morning’s session, something she didn’t often do without a wand since she had mastered only a few very simple spells. “Is that all right?” she asked of Persephone, whose eyes widened at the display of wandless magic. She considered the floating quill as it recorded the date and her name, and shrugged her shoulders, hiding behind a veil of indifference how impressed she was. Hermione took a deep breath and began. “So Persephone, why are you here?”

At this question, Persephone visibly paled and her face took on a pained expression. “I’m here because my brother died and I don’t want to miss him anymore,” she said, choking on her words as she valiantly tried to keep the tears from piercing her battle-hardened exterior.

Hermione leaned forward, her compassion for the poor girl sincere, and offered her a tissue to wipe her eyes. “In the war?” she asked, not needing to use the word ‘die’ to clarify her meaning.

Persephone nodded slowly and took the proffered tissue, using it blow her nose before continuing. “I know that it was a long time ago—two years now—but Thomas and I were together every day of our lives. We were all each other had…” she trailed off, her eyes unseeing as they stared into the flames of the faux fireplace.

“It’s all right to miss him, Persephone,” Hermione said gently, breaking the minute-long silence. She had been observing the younger girl and couldn’t help feeling some kind of kinship with her, as though she was what Hermione might have become if Harry or Ron hadn’t survived the war.

The face Persephone returned was furious. “Don’t act like you know me already—you don’t know anything about me!” she shrieked, half-rising from her chair as though she were going to leave. Then her expression slackened and a calm detachment settled across her features as she sank back into her chair with her head in her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I know that this is your job, it’s just so hard to forget him.”

Hermione had been motionless but watchful during Persephone’s brief tirade. She was aware that sometimes it was the people who seemed most harmless—like this young girl—could be the most dangerous when riled. She spoke kindly to the girl, wanting more than anything to help her through her grief. “But you don’t have to.”

Hermione felt herself being sucked upward and out of the memory by an invisible vacuum. When she seemed to slam into reality, she reached up and felt her pounding head. Through the haze of pain she saw Luna still on the ground, slipping back into unconsciousness with every moment a Healer was delayed, and Persephone’s smug yet malevolent expression. She instinctively groped for her wand, but felt nothing in the pocket where she ordinarily kept it.

“Tsk tsk, Hermione,” scolded Persephone with an almost playful tone. “Forget where you placed your wand?” she taunted, holding up the vine wood of Hermione’s wand, something Hermione never wanted to see in the hands of an enemy.

“It was you?” Hermione demanded, still trying to process it all. Persephone had been her client at some point—and now she had murdered at least two people! Hermione eyed the brunette warily lest the fully trained Auror decided to fire.

Persephone didn’t answer right away but made a show of flourishing Hermione’s wand. “I would have been disappointed indeed if the Brightest Witch of the Age couldn’t solve this one,” she said finally with a smug smirk. “Of course, I had to add some complications in there, things couldn’t be too easy or it would all be over before we got to this point! I had to have your case files confiscated too obviously. I daresay you suspected me all along, but I had to make you forget,” she explained with a long-suffering sigh, as though the effort was expended for Hermione’s own good. “You should really trust your instincts,” she advised sweetly.

“Then why did you get me out of my arrest at the Ministry?” Hermione asked curiously.

Persephone rolled her eyes. “Doyle’s little detective work was not part of the plan. I needed you for something else, which you will most likely find out about in due time. If you cooperate, that is,” Persephone warned, her blue eyes glittering ominously.

Hermione then realized with a discomfiting start that all those niggling feelings of doubt or misgiving that she had been feeling in the presence of Persephone were tangible effects of her memory manipulation. “So you’re a mnemomagus then?” she said more calmly than she felt. While she was still reeling with all the information that was thrown at her in the last few minutes, a ripple of unmitigated anger was uncoiling from the pit of her stomach and traveling throughout her body. She had at last found the person behind the murders of those close to her and she wanted to make Persephone pay for it. But the last thing she wanted to do was provoke an attack from a very skilled witch while she was without a shield. She attempted to stall, hoping somehow that Harry or Ron would overcome whatever Persephone had done to their memories and show up before anything happened.

Persephone smiled as though genuinely amused. “Full of questions today, aren’t we? Yes, I discovered the ability some time at Hogwarts. It’s come in handy more than once, I can tell you… And then everything fell apart.” Her face grew steadily stonier as she spoke until she was practically spitting out the last words.

“Your brother died,” guessed Hermione, unwillingly sympathetic to the lost soul before her.

Her words were not the wisest. Persephone’s already bitter expression turned stormy and sparks shot from the ends of both wands. “Don’t you dare talk about him! You didn’t even know him!” she erupted angrily.

Hermione had barely enough time to dive out of the way before a jet of red light shot past her. Immediately her body went into battle mode and she scrambled off the floor and around a corner that led to the front of the house. She searched her mind for something that would distract Persephone from Luna and hopefully protect the blond until help arrived—if it ever would. “But it obviously makes you upset,” she pointed out, wondering if it were too late to reach through to the Persephone she thought she knew.

“Of course it makes me upset! I went to you for help, and you—you made me remember him when all I wanted to do was forget!” she shouted with a frightening mixture of fury and composure, aiming another curse toward Hermione’s cover. It ricocheted off the wall’s plaster. Somehow, Persephone’s seeming self-possession was more terrifying than if she had dissolved into tears of fired spells blindly.

Hermione was shocked at the ostensible accusation that she was the cause for Persephone’s murderous behavior. “Is that why you’ve done all this? Is this why you’ve attacked innocent people!?” she replied incredulously.

Persephone laughed sardonically. “They weren’t all innocent,” she said darkly.

Hermione thought to her friend lying on the floor, dying from a poison employed by the young woman near her. She was about two seconds from strangling the Auror herself. “Luna is pregnant! Did you ever think of that?!” she said through gritted teeth.

Hermione could practically hear Persephone’s shrug in her reply. “An oversight, but no matter. In fact, it’s rather perfect that you’re here alone since that will make this all so much easier.”

“What do you mean?” Hermione said uneasily.

“Oh Hermione, think about it. You’re already a suspect in the poisonings of three other people. Who would question it if I arrested you here for the fourth?” Persephone said with her throaty laugh.

“Harry would never allow that,” said Hermione though she wasn’t so sure, since neither of her best friends were anywhere to be found.

“Hermione, all of the Occlumency training in the world can’t save you if you don’t know you’re being attacked,” Persephone said rationally. “And don’t expect either Harry or Ron to show, since they’ve conveniently forgotten everything that’s happened in the last few hours and are probably out enjoying a nice pint or two—not that they won’t play a part to come,” she said mysteriously, the heels of her thick heeled boots clinking on the wooden floor as she paced around the kitchen.

“So it was you badge that was found. And Doyle?” Hermione said, grasping at straws for someone who might prove her innocence.

“Oh he genuinely thinks you’re guilty, but he’s a little on the strange side and that worked to my advantage. When put next to me, who would expect that I would be the one changing all the testimonies? It’s just poor record keeping,” she explained. “And Mark won’t help you either, since technically he remembers you being with him in the storeroom all those times I had to borrow the hemlock. Face it, Hermione, you’re finished,” she said with a superior tone.

Hermione’s eyes darted around the part of the kitchen that she could still see. If she sprinted, she might make it out the door and to the Apparition point without sustaining major injuries. But that would leave Luna unprotected—Not that I’m doing the greatest job now, Hermione thought with irritation—and she doubted it would be that easy to escape anyway. She figured her best bet was to keep the brunette talking so that she could think of a way out of the mess she had gotten herself into. “You said that not all of the people were innocent. Why are you doing this?”

The young woman appeared to seriously consider the question. She began speaking almost to herself, words that she had probably been repressing for years. “Thomas was killed by someone on our side, ‘accidental friendly fire.’ That person, that fool, took everything from me in a single, pointless moment. So obviously, I had to avenge his death, and in order to do that I had to pick off one by one the people fighting near him. There was Charlotte Fairclough, Adam Finnin, Mark Bonner, and Ms. Weasley nee Lovegood here.”

The situation sounded strangely familiar. “Persephone, we can talk about this. It doesn’t have to be this way,” she said earnestly, hoping that Persephone wasn’t so far gone as to refuse an offer of help. “You’ve been carrying this alone for so long, let me help you work through the anger.”

“You’re so predictable, Hermione. You said that to me once before too, don’t you remember?Only someone as presumptuous as you would think that there’s still a chance at this point to talk me out of this. Then again I am speaking to the girl who started an entire practice of therapy without an ounce of experience. Let me guess, you thought, ‘Hell, I know a thing or two about grief, why don’t I counsel people?’? You wanted—you tried—to help me, and you failed—just like you failed Robert,” the brunette taunted callously.

“What do you mean?” Hermione said again, feeling a twinge of fear of where the conversation might be heading.

“Ooh, I’ve struck a nerve haven’t I?” she replied gleefully. “Robert Henderson, twenty-one years old, Magical Law Enforcement officer, sandy-blond hair and gray eyes, wand of mahogany and unicorn hair, no family,” she recited. “Hermione Granger, always one to be afraid of failure, fails to save Robert Henderson from a simple flesh wound.”

Hermione’s head shot up at the last remark. “That’s not what happened. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she argued angrily, but she could admit to herself that she wasn’t sure that she remembered anything properly at this point. The voice of doubt was speaking plainly in her head.

“Oh but I do,” Persephone replied and Hermione heard the distinctive crinkle of parchment as though the Auror was removing a sheet from her robes. “Ah, Harry’s your support network, how sweet,” she said scathingly.

Hermione recognized her own words from the missing page from the testimony she had committed to parchment at the start of her practice as a psychotherapist. “How did you get that?” she demanded.

“I stole it of course, it must have slipped your mind,” Persephone replied, amused at her own joke.

Hermione was dumbstruck. “And you’ve just been carrying it around?!”

“Of course! You never know when inspiration will strike!” she replied cheerfully. “Like…NOW!” she shouted suddenly.

Hermione felt the mordant effect of Persephone’s power immediately and couldn’t fight the waves of memory washing over her.

“Please, someone please help me!” a muffled voice begged several meters away.

“I’m going, cover me,” a young woman commanded the bewildered red-headed wizard beside her. Without waiting for his reply, she tucked her wand into the back pocket of her jeans and ran out from behind the makeshift fort consisting of an overturned carriage. Every one of her senses was muted, their energy diverted to her movement as she ran toward the pleading voice. She wouldn’t remember until later the wreckage on either side of her path, nor the shouts and grazing of curses around her.

She now saw why the voice had been hard to follow—its owner had suffered a deep gash in his neck, mere inches from his windpipe. When he saw Hermione, he grabbed her wrist tightly and rasped, “Please help me! I—didn’t—see them—coming.”

Making what she hoped were soothing noises, Hermione wracked her brain for any appropriate healing spell and in the meantime tore off a piece of her shirt to hold it to the wound. The cloth was almost immediately soaked through with blood and Hermione felt the first twinge of fear that this poor soul wouldn’t make it.

She looked down into the man’s face for the first time. “Help me…” he gasped before his eyes rolled back into his head and he laid motionless forever more.

Hermione stood up, wiping the dust from her trousers, and made the journey back to cover.

“That’s not how it happened!” Hermione shouted through a haze of pain lingering from Persephone’s intrusion into her memories. She willed herself to remain clear-headed, to not believe anything that she had just witnessed, but she couldn’t help the overwhelming feeling of guilt rising within her. Could she have done more to save Robert? Hermione shook her head and concentrated on the air flowing in and out of her lungs to keep her mutinous thoughts at bay.

Persephone’s voice was oscillating louder and softer in volume as she paced around the kitchen. “Did you ever wonder why you were suddenly struck by nightmares about him a year ago? You see, dreams are where you’re most vulnerable. A slight suggestion on my part of the way something went and then your mind doesn’t know what to think. It’s oddly satisfying to watch someone reprogram themselves. Takes a lot out of you too, especially within wards like we are now. I will definitely sleep well tonight,” Persephone said lightly, stifling a fake yawn.

The news that Persephone had been playing with her mind for at least a year came as an unwelcome shock to Hermione. She had barely enough time to prepare herself before she felt another piercing pain in her forehead.

“Please, someone please help me!” a muffled voice begged several meters away.

“I’m going, cover me,” a young woman commanded the bewildered red-headed wizard beside her. Without waiting for his reply, she tucked her wand into the back pocket of her jeans and ran out from behind the makeshift fort consisting of an overturned carriage. Every one of her senses was muted, their energy diverted to her movement as she ran toward the pleading voice. She wouldn’t remember until later the wreckage on either side of her path, nor the shouts and grazing of curses around her.

She now saw why the voice had been hard to follow—its owner had suffered a deep gash in his neck, mere inches from his windpipe. When he saw Hermione, he grabbed her wrist tightly and rasped, “Please help me! I—didn’t—see them—coming.”

Hermione ignored his pitiful pleas and set to work, tearing off a piece of her shirt to stop the flow of blood from his wound. Almost immediately the cloth was soaked and whatever curse it was that had made the wound seemed to have some component that made it resistant to healing spells. She tore another piece of her shirt off before realizing that she no longer felt a pulse. Glancing down, she noted that the man’s eyes were half-closed and he had stopped breathing. A curse that came close to hitting her brought her back to reality and she swiftly retreated to the safety of cover.

“Stop it, just leave me alone!” The words flew out of her mouth before she could think. There was no shame in it, just a panicked desperation to rid her mind of the burning images of her failure.

Persephone’s guttural laugh sounded through the otherwise silent kitchen. “Uh oh, someone is on the verge of mental collapse,” she said flippantly. “I must say, I always knew you and Harry were going to end up together—memories involving one’s love are the hardest to change.”

“Please, someone please help me!” a muffled voice begged several meters away.

“I’m going, cover me,” a young woman commanded the bewildered red-headed wizard beside her. Without waiting for his reply, she tucked her wand into the back pocket of her jeans and ran out from behind the makeshift fort consisting of an overturned carriage. Every one of her senses was muted, their energy diverted to her movement as she ran toward the pleading voice. She wouldn’t remember until later the wreckage on either side of her path, nor the shouts and grazing of curses around her.

She now saw why the voice had been hard to follow—its owner had suffered a deep gash in his neck, mere inches from his windpipe. When he saw Hermione, he grabbed her wrist tightly and rasped, “Please help me! I—didn’t—see them—coming.”

Hermione didn’t even think to use her extensive knowledge of healing spells. Her wand lay useless in her back pocket as she tore a piece of cloth from her shirt to at least try to stop the blood. It was almost immediately soaked through and soon the young man began to choke. Hermione recognized that there was little else she could do and decided it would be safer to return to cover rather than remain in the open. She wasn’t even with him when he died.

Hermione said nothing at all when Persephone’s invasive presence retreated but sunk to the floor in a wretched heap. She saw the looming shadow as Persephone stepped around the corner and she couldn’t even muster the energy to be frightened. Frankly, her death would be just payment for leaving Robert to die. She just hoped that Luna would be okay.

Persephone roughly nudged Hermione’s foot with her own. She bent down and hissed into Hermione’s ear. “It will be even better when Harry testifies against you. He’ll probably be haunted forever by the memories of seeing you poison your best friend’s wife because you were having an affair with her husband. In fact, he’ll probably need a support network of his own, and guess who will be right there to help him out?”

Hermione’s head had fallen forward in dejection with each of Persephone’s words. As much as she didn’t want to believe that she was capable of any of it, with Persephone’s voice in her ear she thought that she justly deserved whatever Persephone decided to do with her now. At the end of the day, she was still just a murderer. Would Harry stand by her as she had stood by him all those years ago?

Harry. Her mind seized upon the word and her heart swelled with the love she felt for the man she was proud to call her best friend first and foremost. She had been there with him through every step of growing up and learning who he was as a wizard and a person. And, she realized with a start, she had helped him. She could remember every moment exactly.

First year: Hermione lugged the box up yet another step as flames shot through the air holes on top. She hoped against hope that she wouldn’t be caught out of bounds for this, but she and Harry had to save Hagrid from getting in trouble for having an illegal dragon…She smiled to herself as Harry read the riddle aloud. Most wizards were skilled at showy charms and complicated spellwork, but did not have an ounce of sense. She was impressed, but looking over at a harassed-looking Harry would suggest that he felt otherwise.

Second: She re-read the passage once more to be certain. A basilisk was roaming freely around Hogwarts! But how did such a huge snake travel unnoticed by anyone? It suddenly struck her: pipes. She scrawled the word across the bottom of the page and tore it out, ignoring the twinge of guilt for desecrating a book. Armed with a hand mirror to peek around corners just in case, she quickly ran from the library to tell Harry and Ron what she had found out.

Third year: Three turns later and she and Harry had landed again in the hospital wing. Soon she was burying her head in his back as they soared through the air on the back of the hippogriff they had just rescued. All she could think about was getting back on solid ground and Harry’s godfather to safety.

Fourth year: She corrected Harry’s wand movement yet again as they entered their eighth hour of practicing. She vowed not to go to bed until Harry mastered the Summoning Charm.

Fifth year: She placed the Protean Charm on the basket of fake galleons, proud that even if she wasn’t the best participant in Dumbledore’s Army, at least she could help Harry go under Umbridge’s nose somehow anyway.

There were so many that zoomed through her mind, but the most significant she fixated on longest.

She was running on three days without sleep, but she sensed that the end was near and drew on whatever reserved of energy she had stored deep within her. Harry was looking forward stonily and had only said a handful of words all day, which frankly worried her. Perhaps he too noticed something like finality floating through the air. The sun wasn’t meant to set for another three hours but the mist clinging to the ground everywhere those days shrouded the world in cold and depressing blanket.

“Are you cold?” he said, not looking at her but at the expanse of Hogwarts grounds by Hagrid’s hut.. His voice was gruff from lack of use and her heart ached that everything had come to this. She wasn’t sure how many more defeats their side could take.

She stared ahead into the nothingness following his example, not that they were looking for anything anyway. “Yeah, but so are you,” she said, her words sounding empty and hollow.

To her surprise, Harry snorted and then full-out laughed. “I don’t think I’ve been properly warm since August,” he joked. His grin was contagious and the pair soon found themselves giggling uncontrollably over something they couldn’t even name.

Suddenly a rustling noise sounded in the bushes nearby and their laughter abruptly cut off. Harry grabbed her hand, voicing without words what she had been thinking. From the direction of the forest came the ambush of Death Eaters they had been expecting.

Harry squeezed her hand, his eyes meeting Hermione’s in a silent communication of warning, before they drew their wands to alert the rest of the Order. Somehow she knew that this battle would determine everything.

Several hours later, Hermione was pressing her side where a curse had pierced her clothing and created a gash on her side. She had already performed the customary healing spell to stem the flow of blood, but something in the spell had kept it from coagulating properly and that, combined with the little food she had gotten over the past few days made her woozy and light-headed. Her wound from the last big battle was still stinging and to top it all off, she had lost Harry somewhere in the fray.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” hissed a high-pitched voice. A figure emerged from the shadows, sweeping in front of her with billowy black robes.

Her eyes widened as Lord Voldemort looked her over with depreciatory scrutiny before she set her lips in a firm line and held her head high, not bothering with a response.

“Not going to observe the pleasantries, are we?” he taunted rhetorically. “Well, of course I know who you are. You’re Harry’s little mudblood friend—Miss Granger, is it?”

He circled around her shark-like but still she did not reply. She had an idea how the Dark Lord knew about her, as he counted Professor Snape among his numbers.

Her head snapped to the right as crunching leaves announced a new arrival. “Leave her alone, your fight’s with me,” said Harry menacingly to the man that had effectively brought them all to this confrontation.

Voldemort sneered though his tone was all feigned politeness. “Forgive me for disobeying. I must say though, thank you for saving me the trouble of orchestrating a baited trap with this one here,” he said, indicating Hermione. “You always did love to play the hero, Harry, but this time there’s no Dumbledore to save you. You’re all alone.”

Harry opened his mouth to make a scathing reply when he was interrupted. “He’s not alone,” said Ron without a quaver in his voice. The redhead moved forward and stood beside Harry, wand drawn. Harry sent him a look that told him to back down but Ron was steadfastly ignoring it.

“He’s got friends,” said Hermione, boldly stepping forward to Harry’s other side and removing her hand from her side to draw her wand as well. “Which is more than anyone can say for you.”

Voldemort regarded the trio in incredulity before emitting a maniacal laugh. “Such loyalty, Harry,” he said in amused wonder. “If you all weren’t so stupidly noble, I might not have believed it.”

Hermione, Harry, and Ron looked at one another and silently counted down, praying that hours of Hermione’s research would pay off in the single spell that might perhaps alter the course of the future. The combined spell hit Voldemort straight on, the lines converging until the intensity was too much to bear and they had to look away. When they turned back, nothing was in Voldemort’s place but an overly singed set of robes and a column of shapeless smoke. They stared at one another silently, each of them tensed in case the spell had somehow failed and Voldemort was still alive.

Minutes passed and all they could hear was screams of pain from where the fight had continued. Hermione could see Death Eaters doubled over in the distance, clutching their arms and howling in misery.

“It’s over,” Harry breathed as though still trying to accept it.

Ron and Hermione nodded in unison. “Well, that was a bit anticlimactic,” said Ron in awe.

With her head still bent, Hermione felt as though her eyes had been opened for the first time. She could help people—she had helped Harry! She wouldn’t allow Persephone to make her think she was worthless when she had had a part in literally changing the world.

Her determination renewed, she glanced down at her hand, and an idea flashed through her brain. MEMORY. She bit her lip, cursing herself inwardly for not having thought of it before and banking on Persephone’s pride to be at her own advantage. “Persephone, you’ve seem to have forgotten one thing,” she said, abruptly standing and waiting for the opportune moment to make her move. “Rather ironic, isn’t it?” The Auror seemed too surprised at Hermione’s bold move to curse her. Her wand was raised but she was distracted by Hermione’s sudden confidence. “Yeah, and what’s that?” she sneered disbelievingly.

“I can do wandless magic,” she replied lightly as though she had just pointed out a break in the weather. Persephone’s eyes widened in sudden realization as Hermione directed her palm outward and shouted, “POTENTIA ERADICO!” She had never wandlessly cast a spell of this magnitude alone before and she prayed that it would work.

The white spell whizzed across the kitchen, hitting Persephone square in the face. The young woman clutched her head with both hands, dropping the two wands on the floor and screaming in agony. Hermione saw her crumple into a heap on the floor before a blinding pain seized her forehead and she felt herself losing consciousness. Her last memory was of the floor rushing up to meet her and someone calling her name.

A/N: Does the fic title make any sense now or is it a bit of stretch? Hehe, and I couldn’t resist writing a very unexciting version of the final battle…my apologies!

A/N: Well, here we are, kids, the last chapter of a work that’s taken me more than a year to crank out. A bit pathetic for only 12 chapters, but still. I sincerely thank those of you who have stuck through it all with me and I hope this concluding chapter makes up for the long waits between updates.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of what is written here….Well, maybe a little bit.

Chapter 12~ You Say You Want a Resolution

Hermione came to by degrees, first registering a dull ache in her head and then the grasp of a clammy hand in her own. She forced her heavy eyelids open and blinked at the comparatively bright light of a room she recognized as being in St. Mungo’s. To her right she noticed that Harry was resting his head on the edge of her hospital bed and he tightly held onto her right hand. She reached over with her other hand to ruffle his already unruly raven hair, hoping to clear the frown he wore, and stared up at the ceiling.

Her movement startled Harry awake and his head popped up instantly.

“Hermione, you’re awake!” he exclaimed, all traces of drowsiness replaced with concern. “How are you feeling?” he asked, reaching up with his free hand to cup her cheek, his eyes worriedly scanning her face.

He held her right hand to his lips as she brought her free one to her forehead. “Like I’ve been thrown under a stampede of raging hippogriffs, actually,” she answered with a slight attempt at humor. Despite the pain in her head, having Harry by her side somehow made her feel better.

He smiled to credit her feeble joke before his face regained the same concerned expression. “How much do you remember?” he asked with some apprehension.

Considering his question, she closed her eyes and groaned as her mind was flooded with memories of what had transpired before she’d lost consciousness—how she had discovered Persephone had been the one behind the murders and it was only because of her Mnemomagus power that Hermione hadn’t been able to thwart her until the fourth victim. The deluge ceased as abruptly as it began.

Luna! she thought, sitting up sharply.

“What happened to Luna?” she demanded somewhat frantically, ignoring his question for the time being and trying to rise from the bed. She looked down and through her haze of panic she noted that she had been put into some rather plush hospital garments—the kind usually reserved for permanent patients. Fingers of dread percolated up to her throat at the notion that maybe she had been unconscious for quite a long time.

Harry restrained her from rising and set about pacifying her fear of Luna’s safety. “She’s okay, Ron’s with her. He’s been coming by every day to see you, so he should be here soon.”

“And the baby?” she prodded further.

Harry nodded his head. “Both are fine. Ron and the Healers arrived not long after I did,” he explained.

Hermione sank back into her pillows, expelling a sigh of relief. Suddenly a new fear plagued her, one she was much more afraid to voice. “Harry,” she said in almost a whisper, “How long have I been asleep?” She looked him straight in the eye, realizing that if his green irises were so perfectly offset by the bloodshot whites, he must have been keeping vigil by her bed for quite a while.

With the most serious tone she had every heard him use, he replied, “Twenty-three days, fourteen hours, and—” he glanced down at his watch, “thirty seven minutes.”

Although she had been Petrified for far longer second year, Hermione could see from the visible effects of her unconsciousness in Harry’s strained jaw muscles and the fact that he had the beginnings of a beard on his face that he was more affected this time. She felt a wealth of emotion for him all of a sudden, sitting there at her bedside as she slumbered through the weeks, but more than anything she felt horrible for causing him additional pain. His must have been the arms that caught her as she was passing out.

“Oh Harry, I’m so sorry!” she cried, tears glistening in her eyes and then traveling down her face in torrents of guilt. She didn’t even care that her tears combined with how frizzy her hair must have become throughout her stay in the wizarding hospital must have made her look quite a fright.

The dark-haired wizard looked startled at his girlfriend’s unanticipated mood-swing. He immediately got into bed beside her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “Don’t be sorry, Hermione, this was all my fault.”

“Your fault?!” Hermione raised her head from where she was leaving wet stains on his shirt and stared at him with genuine confusion. “Harry, how was any of this your fault?”

“Well, Persephone was my partner the entire time, and if I would have realized sooner who and what she was, we could have avoided this entire thing. Or if I had gotten to you at Luna’s sooner, you wouldn’t be here in this bed right now,” Harry said with anger that Hermione was sure he was directing at himself. He had also been the one to say Persephone’s name first; Hermione wasn’t sure she could process it all just yet.

She laid a hand on his chest clenching the cloth of his shirt tightly. “Harry, listen to me. You couldn’t have known what she was up to, and even if you did suspect, she could have easily made you forget it. You did everything you could,” she told him forcefully, daring him to argue with her.

He was quiet and kept his gaze on his lap though his arms were still embracing her. When he broke the silence it was as though he had become ten years younger. He was putting up a brave front but Hermione could tell that it was only maintained through speaking as emotionlessly as possible. “The whole time you were probably fighting for your life I was wandering around the flat not sure what I was meant to be doing. I thought I was supposed to meet Ron later that night, so I reached for the Floo powder to remind him and noticed a word written on my hand.”

Hermione nodded, remembering how her foe had mentioned her interference in Harry and Ron’s would-be rescue. She waited for Harry to continue.

“Then it all came rushing back, just like before. Instead of Flooing Ron’s flat, I went straight here and caught Ron looking lost in the lobby. I made sure he was good to get Healers for Luna and then I went to Luna’s and took the drive at a full run. When I got there…” He paused for a moment and then continued, his voice gaining strength with every word. “I threw open the door and you were there about to collapse. I didn’t even hear about Persephone until later. All I could think to do was catch you and get you to the hospital as soon as possible. I couldn’t even look at your face, but I could see how pale you were and your pulse was slowing even as I ran with you down the walk to the Apparition point.”

He tilted his head to look deeply into her eyes. “I thought I could feel you dying, Hermione… I kept thinking that I would do anything to have you spared. I would never take you for granted again, I would tell you I loved you every day, I would buy you roses on your birthday and every time I did something stupid. I would ask you to marry me,” he finished grasping one of her hands tightly.

Hermione’s eyes went wide in surprised and she sucked in a breath. Of all the ways that she had envisioned Harry proposing to her, and she would be lying if she denied ever having thought of it before, sitting beside him in a hospital bed wearing striped pajamas was not one of them.

“Hermione Granger, will you be my wife?” he asked, his shining eyes reflecting her bewildered expression. He looked away from her once to dig into his jacket pocket, pulling out a simple silver ring beset with one brilliant sapphire and holding it out as though for her inspection.

Her hands flew to her mouth and she forgot all about her concern with her appearance. With a smile that truly displayed her parents’ profession, she acknowledged that this time her fleeting memory was due to sheer happiness rather than mind manipulation, and answered her best friend with her characteristic engulfing embrace.

He laughed and hugged her back. “I hope that means yes,” he said as she pulled away.

She lunged forward again to capture his lips in a searing kiss that she hoped sufficiently conveyed her sentiments. When she sat back she giggled at her fiance’s dazed expression. “That’s a hell yes, Harry.”

He cracked a goofy grin and slid the ring gently onto her finger. She moved her hand so that the blue stone glimmered in the light and asked, “When did you get this?” she asked.

At this Harry blushed a little and ran his hand through his hair. “I’ve actually had it for years,” he said. “It was my mother’s, she was born in September too,” he added in reference to the sapphire.

Returning his sad smile, she turned to admire the ring once more. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed quietly, her heart feeling as though it would burst from absolute happiness. She knew how much anything that had belonged to his parents meant to Harry and she was touched that not only did he love her enough to share it with her, but that they would be sharing every day together as well for the rest of their lives.

She looked up into his sparkling green eyes and leaned in put their lips together. He wrapped his arms around instantly but even as he deepened the kiss and her fingertips went all tingly, Hermione’s thoughts invariably went back to the unresolved matter of the brunette witch responsible for putting her in the hospital.

With her face screwed up in apology, she said, “Sorry to be a mood killer, Harry, but whatever happened to Persephone?” She blinked; saying the name had been strangely liberating, as thought she were letting go of a ghost that had clung to her for years. In some sense, that was exactly what she had done.

Harry’s eyes darkened and Hermione was afraid that he was again blaming himself for what happened. “That spell that you used stripped her of her Mnemomagus power temporarily, which I guess was traumatic enough to make her pass out. But then it rebounded on you since she been connected to you with her mind. I don’t know, it was explained to me but I didn’t really understand. When neither of you woke up after three days, the hospital called in a memory charm specialist from India to oversee your recovery.

“But then about two weeks ago, Persephone woke up and confessed to everything—not only the to the poisonings but to persuading your boss to confiscate your case files and changing the witness’ testimonies as well. And we’ve got motive as well, which she told us too, ” he explained, his expression unreadable.

“Oh,” she said, utterly speechless. It was a lot to take in just one go, and she was surprised to find that she wasn’t very upset about it. “Did you talk to her yourself?” she asked with some trepidation.

Harry laughed bitterly. “No, and that was probably wise. For what she did to you, and the fact that she was awake and you weren’t—” He paused, gathering his composure. “Persephone’s lawyer is trying to reduce her sentence by contracting her to work with St. Mungo’s staff to learn more about Mnemomagi, since they’re so rare.”

“So she could potentially get away with all of this?” Hermione gasped in disbelief.

“Not if I can help it,” said Harry darkly.

Hermione pursed her lips, her mind racing forward as she decided to change tact. “But Harry, don’t you think power that potent should be properly documented, so that something like this can’t happen again?”

His expression softened as he considered her point. “I suppose, but not if it means her going free,” he answered with determination.

“Who said anything about her going free? I’m just saying that we should learn everything we can about it since it’s so uncommon. No one should have to go through what we’ve been going through for the past few weeks—or year, I guess,” she countered.

Harry cracked a smile, conceding the point. “Why are we arguing about this? I’m just glad that you’re okay.”

She returned his grin cheekily. “All thanks to you,” she said, nudging his shoulder playfully.

“Thanks to me, how so?” he asked with honest curiosity.

She told him what Persephone had said about not being able to affect the deeply rooted memories of love. Harry seemed just as surprised as she did that Hermione’s ‘memories of love’ including him went back all the way to their first year. When their laughter had died down a bit, Hermione voiced a concern that had been niggling her almost since she woke up. “What I want to know is why I forgot that I could do wandless magic. I’m guessing that since Mnemomagi operate by manipulating short-term memory, if a person is constantly put under duress, then their long-term memory will be affected as well. I imagine that that would include semantic memory too, which refers to knowledge of the outside world.”

“Sure,” said Harry uncertainly, his eyebrows raised in the customary way as when he had no clue what she was talking about.

There was a knock on the door that prevented Hermione from elaborating. Harry instantly sprang from the bed and dove for the chair just as a Healer walked in wearing the traditional lime green robes followed by another in decked in a brilliant shade of magenta. Hermione looked up to find Healer Augustus Pye staring at her as though on the brink of recognition and reminded herself with some relief that she had been disguised with a glamour the last time she saw him. A young Indian woman about ten years Hermione’s senior smiled at her politely, though Hermione could feel her eyes assessing her. Hermione assumed that she was the specialist Harry had spoken of earlier.

“Now you don’t remember me—” Pye said, chuckling at his own joke while Harry, Hermione, and the specialist glared at him, “But I am Healer Pye, chief resident of the ward here. And this is Healer Vemulakonda,” he added as an afterthought.

Pye rubbed his hands together cheerfully, conjuring a clipboard with his wand. “Nice and awake I see, Miss…” he paused and flipped the top parchment, “Granger?” Without waiting for an answer, as it was inherently obvious anyway, Pye proceeded to wave his wand across Hermione’s forehead. “You’ve sustained a fair bit of damage in your entorhinal cortex, but luckily Mr. Potter here got you to the hospital before the spell did irreversible damage.” He grinned winningly at Harry, who stared blankly back unsure that he deserved praise for something that was instinct, and returned his attention to Hermione.

Hermione cleared her throat, still hoping that Pye had not recognized within her the Jane Grey counterpart, and asked, “May I inquire as to the status one of your patients here, a man by the name of Mark Bonner?”

Surprised that Hermione seemed unconcerned for her own health and caught off guard by the question, Pye responded with his chest puffed out, “Er, ordinarily that information is classified, but I am confident in my abilities as Healer that Mr. Bonner will be returned to health within a matter of days.”

Hermione smiled at the good news just as the dark-haired woman stepped forward to speak. Pye threw the woman an annoyed glance. “Your memories should be restored as your brain recorded them over time, with full recovery expected within the month,” she said slowly. “The system that governs your semantic memory processes is still rebuilding itself, so your short and long term memory may not operate at full capactity for at least a few weeks.”

“I see,” said Hermione carefully. “So what does that mean exactly?”

Healer Vemulakonda smiled at Hermione’s question. “Oh, nothing significant. You may find that you misplace your keys more often or that quills wind up in the icebox. Short term memory by definition only lasts perhaps half a minute, and the reason it’s so affected is because of Miss Perris’ influence over your subconscious, which is connected to the same system.”

Harry got up and surreptitiously made his way over to Healer Pye, who was glaring at the Healer now speaking with Hermione. Hermione wondered what he was doing, but she took the opportunity to try and find out more about Persephone’s case. She leaned forward toward Healer Vemulakonda, hoping the gesture would invite a confidence, and whispered, “Are you going to be working with Miss Perris then?”

With a quick glance behind her at Harry and Pye speaking in undertones, she stepped closer and replied, “I’m hoping to. I must admit that this is one of the most exciting cases to come up in my entire career.” She paused as though considering whether to say more. She regarded Hermione resolutely and said, “You know, I’ve heard a lot about you, Miss Granger, and this case seems to be something that might interest you as well.”

Hermione blushed at the compliment. “I think under different circumstances I would have jumped at the chance to work with you on this. But I don’t feel that it would be entirely appropriate if I were involved with Miss Perris’ case, at least not directly.” She found herself to be somewhat disappointed by that thought.

It appeared that Harry’s whispered conversation with Pye had concluded and the green clad Healer began his exit. Healer Vemulakonda reached into her robes and handed Hermione a card. “Just think about it and let me know if you change your mind. Happy recuperating,” she joked as she turned to follow Pye out.

Hermione stared at the curly writing on the card, tucking it into the shirt pocket of her pajamas. Harry came to sit beside her again and told her before she could ask what he had discussed with Healer Pye he said, “You’re free to go as soon as Pye has you sign the necessary paperwork.” She beamed with pleasure at the idea of returning to their flat and rested her head on Harry’s shoulder. The feeling of peace did not last as Hermione internally fought with herself on whether or not she should bring up what she had been wondering since the Healers told her about the lasting effects on her long-term memory.

She knew that it was Harry and that he would never laugh at her or belittle her for the question, so she squeezed her eyes shut and forced it out. “Harry, can I ask you something?” She felt him nod. “What really happened with Robert Henderson?”

He tensed at the name, knowing that she was especially sensitive to the events surrounding it. He looked down at her as she kept her head on his shoulder as he replied. “He was hit and you risked your life to try and save him. But he died and you were hit too…You did everything you could, Hermione,” he said, inadvertently echoing her words from earlier.

Hermione was silent as she forced the information to jive with what she had stored in her brain. With minimal tears, she looked up at him and smiled, indicating her head with a finger. “I think I knew that somewhere deep down. I just have about a dozen different versions up there and it’s hard to know what really went on….thanks, Harry.”

He shrugged his shoulders modestly. “So what were you talking about with Healer Vemulakonda?” he asked curiously.

Hermione sat up to face him. “Harry, what do you think about me working on Persephone’s case? Is it too much of a conflict of interest?” she asked carefully. One did not come across this kind of case very often and she would always wonder what might have happened if she passed up the opportunity.

Looking at her earnest expression, Harry seemed to understand all that she was feeling. “If it’s something you want to do, then you should do it,” he said simply, not one to over-dramatize. “But if you end up wringing her neck I will say I told you so,” he added with his characteristic disarming grin.

Hermione’s face broke out into another smile and she threw her arms around him once more. She wasn’t sure why his approval seemed so vital but his support meant more than she could say.

Some minutes later, Hermione was properly discharged and held Harry’s hand tightly as they made their way to the Apparition point, making some wordless agreement to come back and visit Ron and Luna a little later. It had been a rather eventful day and Hermione felt as though there was a large neon sign informing the world that she was engaged to the most wonderful man that she had ever met. Every now and then the pair would glance at each other at the same time, grinning like idiots. When they stepped through the doors into this lovely London afternoon, Harry turned to Hermione and waggled his eyebrows mischievously. “Ready to go home?”

“Sorry, who are you?” she asked able to keep a straight face for about two seconds before promptly bursting out laughing.

Harry shook his head in relieved amusement. “Not even a little funny, Hermione.”

She pulled him closer by the collar as passers-by jostled into them from either side as they went about their shopping. “But you love me anyway,” she breathed huskily.

Throwing an arm around her possessively, Harry prepared them for Appartition. “That I do, Hermione, that I do.”

He leaned in to kiss her and she grinned at the sight of his ring on her finger just over his shoulder. “Harry,” she said before their lips could meet.

“Yeah?” he asked, pulling away to look at her lovingly.

“Let’s go home.”

A/N: The end! I hope you all have enjoyed the ride, I know I did! And of course I would love to know what you think. Take care everyone!

p.s. Keep an eye for a special chapter after this with some useless information that might nonetheless prove interesting…

A/N: Hello, everyone. As you may have guessed, this is obviously not an update but more of a special features application thing. I first came up with the idea for this fic when I was reading a story about a serial killer over a year and a half ago. I spent quite a long time coming up with appropriate names for the characters and I thought that maybe a few of you would find it interesting. So here goes:

Adam= first man, meaning Hermione's first client

Finnin=fair birth, handsome

Charlotte=just one of my favorite names

Fairclough= not really sure how to pronounce, but means `fair cliff'. I usually assign fair meanings to ultimately `good' people.

Jemma=another one of my favorite names

Mark= I had Saint Mark in mind or Mark from the Gospel

Bonner= good, Norman-French 11^th century origin, all variants mean `good'

Persephone= `-phone' is Greek for `to destroy' or `to murder,' relationship to Demeter implies hint of goodness

Perris= `stone' in Greek, I interpreted it to mean stubborn

Robert=bright fame

Henderson=home power

Doyle=I deliberately did not give him a first name, but Doyle means `dark stranger' in Gaelic

Thomas=Greek form of Aramaic name meaning `twin'

Ebenezer=miserly character in “A Christmas Carol,” I doubt anyone missed that

Powell=means `son of Howell' in Welsh, Howell or Hywel in Welsh means `eminent'

In terms of things other than names, I've introduced the idea of a key word to restore memory loss, but I owe the idea of a Mnemomagus to Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next book series.

I don't think I missed anything…but if there are questions out there (which I doubt) then I can answer. I hope you all enjoyed the fic and thanks very much for reading it!

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